


See You, Space Cowboy

by astrangerenters



Category: Arashi (Band), Japanese Actor RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Alternate Universe - Space, Anal Sex, Bounty Hunters, Brothels, Bucket List, Crossdressing, Double Penetration, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Gender or Sex Swap, IN SPACE!, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Multi, Oral Sex, Rimming, Sex Toys, Shower Sex, Spaceships, Vibrators
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-27
Updated: 2013-10-26
Packaged: 2017-12-30 14:19:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 28,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1019657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astrangerenters/pseuds/astrangerenters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aiba Masaki and Ninomiya Kazunari are the hired muscle for Royale, a space brothel. These are their adventures. Their <i>sexual</i> adventures.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A series of vignettes set in the same outer space AU. Mostly porn, let's be honest.

**.Royale Flush.**

Aiba Masaki would never admit it, but he still had trouble finding his way around Royale. Though he could tell up from down and starboard from port, there was just something about Royale that always left him confused.

He supposed the perpetual scents of soothing lavender and heavy patchouli that perfumed the air inside the place had a lot to do with it too. Royale was a space station orbiting the planet Kangiten and was dedicated to one thing: pleasure. And so the air was always scented to calm the nerves, to help visitors relax and let Kou-san's lackeys drain their accounts while they went about their business. Aiba had started out as one of those visitors himself, having saved for months to get into the place, until Kou-san had plucked him from obscurity (and from between the thighs of one of her best girls) and set him on the path to being a lackey himself.

Not that there was anything wrong with being a lackey for Shibasaki Kou, Royale's drop-dead gorgeous proprietress and one of the Alpha Quadrant's most powerful women. There were worse employers to have, definitely. Under Kou's wing he and his partner Nino had gotten a ship of their own, and when they weren't on a job they could go off to explore. Or gamble. They kind of did a lot of gambling.

After getting turned around on the most dangerous level of the seven-level station (the level with male prostitutes from Daruma IV, planet of the "double thick dicks"), Aiba finally made his way to one of the turbolifts that would take him to Kou's office at the top. Nino was at the bottom of the station in the hangar bay fueling up the Sobu Line, their ship, for whatever journey Kou was sending them on this time.

From a young age, Aiba had wanted to be a bounty hunter. To hop in a ship, fly across the galaxy, chase down criminals, and become rich beyond his wildest dreams. He'd found a best friend in Ninomiya Kazunari and together they'd roamed around in search of fortune. But bounty hunting had come under a lot of bureaucratic red tape in recent years, so what they did now wasn't so much "bounty hunting" as it was "being hired goons who tracked down johns who skipped out on their bills."

It was still bounty hunting in Aiba's eyes, at least.

Though security was pretty tight at Royale on account of Kou's wealth and influence, some jokers tried pulling fast ones anyway. Using fake accounts. Paying with counterfeit credits. Drugging their partners and slipping away down a turbolift in one of the poor woman's negligees. Nino and Aiba got first dibs on the cheapskates.

There was a saying in the Alpha Quadrant, that "Shibasaki Kou always got hers." Little did people know that it meant "money" most of the time. Getting yourself on Kou's blacklist, getting hunted down by Nino and Aiba, meant paying double or paying with your life. And yet some fools still tried it.

The turbolift door slid open with a whoosh, revealing the top level of Royale. Level One was called "The Cherry on Top," and along with Kou's office and boudoir the level housed Kou's best guys and girls. Even as an employee Aiba could never afford it with his Hired Goon Discount.

He pressed the call button outside of the office, the retinal scanner working its magic. "Aiba Masaki, employee 361," the computer said in its sensual, hushed tone. Inside he found someone who, as usual, was not pleased to see him. Because whenever Matsumoto Jun saw Aiba Masaki, it meant that someone had ripped Kou off again.

Where Aiba usually strolled around in some comfy slacks, a shirt, and his vest, blaster holstered on the belt that hung loosely around his waist, Matsumoto Jun was a living, breathing wedding cake topper.

As Kou's personal assistant in all things (ALL things, Jun liked to remind everyone), he dressed the part. He walked around with his CommChip clipped to his ear, putting him in direct contact with Kou any time she required him. Today's ensemble wasn't as fluffy as usual. He wore a purple mesh see-through tank top, designed especially to showcase the nipple clamps Kou had decided he would spend the day wearing. His bottom half was swathed in a purple silk sarong that hugged his narrow waist. He was barefoot, walking around with his CommPad in his hand.

"You were summoned 17 hours ago," Matsumoto grumbled, tapping away angrily on the CommPad with one of his thick, sassy eyebrows arched menacingly. "The fuck took you so long?"

Aiba held in a giggle at the way Matsumoto was desperately trying not to look like he was itching around his nipple. "There was a backup at the Bishamon warp gate," Aiba informed the person who wasn't actually his boss but always acted like it. "Like, if you give us money to buy a FastPass we can get here faster."

"Maybe if you did your jobs better you'd earn a fucking FastPass."

It was definitely not a good day at Royale. Aiba plopped himself down in one of the leather armchairs adorning the office. It was well-lit and rather sterile compared to the rest of the space station. Kou always said there had to be at least one place for business and not pleasure on board. Jun spent a lot of his days in here, working out logistics while Kou promised politicians and celebrities that their escapades here would not become public knowledge on the Net. Especially if they were fans of double thick dick.

Kou was the pretty face of Royale, the headmistress of pleasurable pursuits. And Matsumoto Jun, unfortunately, was the man behind the scenes who had to make it all happen smoothly.

Matsumoto's CommChip went blue. He sneered at Aiba. "She'll see you now."

Aiba got to his feet, leaving his belt and blaster holster in the office before Jun ushered him in to Kou's boudoir.

If the lavender in the space station corridors was intoxicating, the scent of night orchid in Kou's rooms was enough to drive a man wild. Or a woman. Aiba knew Kou-san didn't discriminate. 

She was in her sitting room outside of her bedroom, sitting behind the desk in her ornate chair, her long legs propped up on the desk. Jun moved to stand by her side, guarding his mistress like an obedient dog. Kou herself needed little protection, Aiba knew.

She'd lost an eye in the galactic war a decade back, and the patch she wore gave her a hardened, unapproachable look. But she was drop-dead gorgeous, with creamy pale skin and long black hair that curled where it rested on top of her breasts. She found that sitting in the nude on most occasions intimidated people. Even after working for the woman for three years, Aiba still didn't know where he was supposed to look. At her good eye? At her glittery eyepatch? At the dark curls at the junction of her thighs? Nino was always disappointed when Aiba got the call to go upstairs without him.

She turned in the chair slightly as he approached, crossing her legs at the ankles where they rested on the wooden desktop. "Masaki, good morning."

"Good morning, Kou-san. You look well."

She nodded. "Milk baths. Sakura Station in the Aegis Cluster has the best in the system. I highly recommend them."

It was out of his price range, but he nodded politely, moving from foot to foot as his dick twitched uncontrollably at the sight of his naked boss. 

Jun was tapping away on his CommPad. "Aiba-san is here regarding the situation on level four last night."

"Ah, of course. And Daigo-san is usually such a good customer," Kou lamented. Her fingers struck out, slipping along Jun's side, tickling him as though he'd done something wrong by interrupting her milk bath story. He side-stepped away from her menacing fingers, though she didn't seem to mind.

"Daigo-san the musician?" Aiba asked.

Jun nodded. "He paid for one girl, snagged two and thought we wouldn't notice."

"He's kind of famous," Aiba pointed out. "How should we handle it?"

Kou wiggled her hand in the direction of a bowl of strawberries on her desk. Jun dutifully lifted the bowl, presenting them to his boss. Aiba licked his lips as Kou licked hers, fingers hovering over each red fruit before selecting one and taking a bite out of it. Juice dribbled down her chin and she made no move to wipe herself clean.

"I'll take triple from him, on account of him being a regular customer. The boy should know better," Kou ordered.

With that Aiba was dismissed. He was not offered a strawberry.

 

**.Lalapipo.**

Aiba came back from Kou-san's office with an erection and no FastPass. Much as Nino adored his best friend and partner, the guy was a grade A ditz sometimes. All he had to do once he got his assignment was ask nicely: "Kou-san, can Nino and I have a FastPass?" and then they could bypass all the warp gate queues, could zap their way across the quadrant faster. Could do their job better. 

"Was she eating strawberries again?" Nino asked as Aiba slid into the co-pilot seat at his side.

Aiba wriggled uncomfortably in his seat, scratching his fingers through his frizzy brown hair. "Yeeeees."

"You're such a teenager sometimes," Nino replied, reaching across the control console to give his friend a smack. "You get in her office and in seconds you're pitching a tent. She does that on purpose you know. So you can't ask for special favors. It's why she always asks for you alone now. Because I'm smarter than you, and I can see through her nudist crap."

Aiba scowled at him, adjusting his pants. "Yeah right, in what galaxy are you smarter than me?"

"All of them," Nino replied, waiting for Royale's flight ops crew to give them the all clear to depart. 

Aiba filled Nino in on the details. Rock and roller Daigo of the shitty rock band Meteor Breakerz had pulled a fast one on Royale security and had gotten a lot more bang for his buck. But the Sobu Line bounty hunting team was now on the case.

Unlike his friend, Nino hadn't grown up dreaming of hunting down criminals and assholes. He'd grown up dreaming of one day having so many credits that he could swim in them. But his options had been limited. The only way to earn tons of money was to work for it, and their home planet hadn't offered much more gainful employment than moisture farming in the desert dunes. Given that their home planet was drier than a granny's vagina, there wasn't much moisture to be farmed anyway.

And so they'd taken to the stars, earning their credits by working for a one-eyed madam and her stick up the ass whipping boy. At the very least, it was a good opening line when he was hitting on people at a bar and hoping the night would go in his favor. 

FastPass-less and with the knowledge that the Meteor Breakerz "WISH For The Stars" tour was taking the band to the other side of the quadrant for a show at the Pretty Guardian Casino and Convention Station, Nino grumbled as the Sobu Line wound up at the back of a twenty-six ship deep queue, waiting to go through the warp gate.

"I'm sorry about the FastPass. I swear I'll ask next time." Aiba gazed out at the stars. "She had Jun in nipple clamps today."

Nino snorted. "Did she?"

Aiba nodded. "His life is so hard, huh?"

Oh, to be Matsumoto Jun, Nino thought with a chuckle. Trapped on that station day in, day out, watching people fuck on the security cams to make sure nobody was breaking the rules or breaking the whores. Guy probably had the worst case of blue balls in the galaxy.

After an agonizing wait they were finally through the warp gate. Aiba spent most of the journey reading through Net feeds, trying to ascertain Daigo-san's location. The Pretty Guardian show was tomorrow night and the Meteor Breakerz had yet to dock there to begin rehearsals. The media was in a panic. Where in the universe was Daigo-san?

If he had a brain in his head, he'd call it off. Laryngitis. An STD. A dead grandma. The guy had to know Kou was on to him, had sent out her finest. If anything, he'd contact them first so they didn't have to bust into the show, blasters blazing. Nino preferred the more subtle transactions anyway. He wasn't the action hero type. That was more Aiba's style. Shoot first and then run like hell.

With nothing conclusive coming over the wire, Nino took the Sobu Line to Idaten, the tiny ice moon orbiting the fifth planet in the system, halfway between the warp gate and Pretty Guardian. No point wasting fuel going all the way to the station if Daigo wasn't planning to show. And if the Net was no use, they'd have to go the old fashioned route. Secrets and whispers, the true currency of the universe.

Idaten was colder than a tundra wolf's nutsack, which kept its residents and businesses mostly out of the Empire's interest. It was a sparsely populated little moon, dotted here and there with unregulated brothels, yakuza storage domes, and a pub that always had the latest news if you knew how to spread your credits around.

Lalapipo was burrowed underground, nestled in a cave of ice and specially engineered to stay warm. Nino wasn't much for science, so like most customers he went inside to marvel appropriately at the glimmering, icy blue walls and the warm press of bodies and not think too hard about how it was built.

Aiba stayed in the hangar bay topside with the Sobu Line while Nino descended into the moon's depths, flipping a bag full of credits at the bouncer as he stepped inside. Flames danced inside fire troughs, spread strategically around the pub to keep things toasty. All around him he could hear business transactions underway. Stolen merchandise, drug smuggling. None of it was relevant to him.

He only had eyes for the bartender.

Though they'd left Royale mid-morning, by Idaten time it was almost midnight. The Lalapipo crowd was drunk, and Nino suspected that the bartender was already slipping his fingers to the bottom shelf and charging twice as much for the shitty liquor. Nino always admired smart businesspeople, bypassing a stumbling drunk trawler captain to take a seat at the bar.

It was a sparkling blue and constructed to look like the icy walls, as though the bar itself had sprung up out of the moon's core to make everyone good and drunk in style. But this wasn't a scientific breakthrough like the rest of the structure - this was just the keen interior decorating eye of the bartender.

"Well if it isn't my shittiest customer."

Nino grinned from ear to ear. "I see it's ladies night, huh, Nari?"

Narimiya Hiroki was master and mistress to dozens of folks across the quadrant, depending on how they preferred him. He tended bar with the same sharp eyes and model cheekbones every night, but on half of those nights he looked more she. Tonight was one of those nights. Nari was tall, gorgeous no matter what he slithered around in, and tonight's ensemble was a floral yukata held together with a ruby red obi that matched his lips.

His short hair was locked away under a purple shoulder-length bob, a jeweled butterfly comb adorning the side of his head. He made a point of stretching up to the top shelf and bringing down the house's most expensive bottle of whiskey. Nari probably knew Nino was here for business tonight.

"Closing time's not for another two hours," Nari informed him. "Rocks or straight up?"

Nino licked his lips. "Rocks."

"Cheap fucker," Nari said with a laugh, filling a glass with some Lalapipo signature ice crystals before adding the whiskey. "You'll slosh this shit around until it melts and get two drinks for the price of one."

"I love this bar," Nino insisted, knocking his knuckles against it.

And so for two hours Nino waited. Nari smiled and simpered around, letting drunk patrons slip credits into the sleeves of his yukata while Nino did just as the bartender had predicted, letting the ice melt and water down the strong liquor. He had to negotiate a fair price, and to do that he needed to be mostly sober. Nari was gorgeous and knew it so well he could jack up his prices without wasting time on a haggle. And Nino always preferred to haggle.

Finally the bar cleared out, and Nari dismissed his bouncers. He came around the bar after he wiped it down, perching himself gracefully in the stool at Nino's side.

"Masaki up top?"

Nino nodded. "Hopefully the idiot's keeping the engine running. We get ice from this gods-forsaken moon on the wings again, I'm sending him out the airlock."

Nari chuckled. "My friends, the lethal enforcers."

Nino sipped the remnants of his drink. "Lethal? Now Nari-kun, be nice, we're not like the bums who come in here hiring hitmen. We're only taking back money that's the rightful property of a one-eyed crazy woman."

"Speaking of," Nari interrupted, "I suppose that's why you're here? It's never anything but work with you lately."

He acknowledged it with a quick little nod. If Nari tended bar almost anywhere else in the galaxy Nino would stop by more, but this place was just too damn cold. Even underground, even in the rooms Nari had in the back of the bar, the fur-lined blankets that Nino knew intimately well. But even here in the cold, secrets somehow found their way into Nari's ears. What Nari knew could fill a book, and the real reason he tended bar on an ice moon was to hide from the influential people whose secrets he was keeping close.

"Daigo of the Meteor Breakerz. Due on stage tomorrow night but so far a no show. What can you tell me?"

Nari pulled the butterfly comb from his wig, sliding it between his fingers and tapping it on the bar top. "How to catch him. He'll show up at Pretty Guardian, but you'll never get to him."

Nino fished around inside his pocket, slipped a handful of credits onto the bar. Nari sifted through them, counting. 

"Perhaps you didn't receive my newest rate card," Nari said, sounding a bit insulted.

"Ladies jewelry's a bit hard to come by on an ice moon, huh? You need me to finance your next string of pearls?"

"I've never led you astray, Kazu," Nari replied, leaning over to brush his red lipsticked mouth against Nino's neck, sending a shiver of pleasure straight down his spine. "I always give and give and give."

That much Nino knew was true. Much as he already knew it would take another fifty credits to get Nari talking and already had the money prepared, he allowed Nari to continue pleading his case, to continue the negotiations. He tilted his head and met the bartender full on, tasting the waxy harshness of Nari's lip stain before Nari's tongue slipped past his lips to curl inside with the lingering taste of the whiskey.

He negotiated right back, sliding a hand up Nari's waxed-smooth leg, moving past the shimmering satin hem of his yukata. He smiled into their kiss as Nari's fingers meandered their way up Nino's thighs, searching the inside of his vest for the rest of his credits. He batted the bartender's hands away, nipping at Nari's lip.

"Ouch," Nari protested, taking his tongue and hands back in that order, pouting. "You don't keep your money in the same place anymore."

"You taught me a valuable lesson," Nino argued right back, not even bothering to lose his temper. He was too busy trying not to imagine those red, red lips sealed around the head of his cock. Business, he told himself. Just business tonight.

"Just put the credits where I can see them, and I'll tell you. You're really no fun sometimes. I deliver without fail and what do I get for my trouble? A short little bounty hunter with a shit-eating grin trying to buy me off cheap."

"I'm not short," Nino protested, slipping his hands into a different pocket to produce the credits as requested. "I'm just compact, but not where it counts."

Nari rolled his eyes. "Yes, yes, surely you are descended from the mighty warriors of Daruma IV." He started counting Nino's money again, adding the coins up until he was satisfied. "Daigo-san is in debt because his silly WISH For The Stars tour is not going to break even. But heavens forbid Kou-san keeps him from the rock star lifestyle and the rock star sexcapades that go with it."

Nino nodded, wanting to rub the lipstick from his mouth but knowing he'd have to wait until he left the bar. "What's his plan?"

"Pretty Guardian's the last stop on this stretch. He's off to Beta Quadrant and out of the way for the next leg of the tour. I sincerely doubt Kou will follow. It would cost as much to fuel your ship to catch him as it would to just eat the insult he showed at Royale."

Nino shook his head. "You don't know Kou-san and her pride as well as you might think. But she'd sure appreciate it if we nabbed him in Alpha Quadrant."

"Pretty Guardian it is. He'll do the show, the minimum set list required to meet the terms of his contract there. Then they'll make a run for it. Meaning you have to catch him before he goes on stage."

"We're pretty good at sneaking and extortion by now."

"His security team knows your faces. People are catching wise, and they know that Kou always sends you two to settle her problems. They'll have hired thugs patrolling the whole station," Nari pointed out. "Which means an undercover job."

Nino sighed. He hated extra effort. "How undercover are we talking?"

Nari brought his finger under Nino's chin, offering a wink. "As you say, you're rather compact. But Masaki and I are about the same size, aren't we?"

 

**.I Want To Rock and Roll All Night.**

"We dock in three minutes!" Nino's voice came calling from the bridge. "Are you pretty yet?"

"Piss off!" Aiba howled back, fumbling with the box full of girl stuff Nari had let them borrow. He'd spent half the trip from Idaten to Pretty Guardian watching makeup tutorials over the Net. That ladies went to all this trouble with such regularity was both distressing and impressive.

Nino had come back from Lalapipo down more credits than he'd wanted, towing along a garment bag and a metric ton of makeup. The way to Daigo's wallet was somehow routed through his dick. Aiba was going in as a groupie to seduce Kou's money back. Aiba thought Nino would have been far better suited for this kind of deception. He had more delicate features, skinny little arms and legs that could pass better. Aiba Masaki had never been very in touch with his feminine side.

He was now in a short skirt and a gauzy top that wouldn't have looked out of place on Matsumoto Jun. Nari had really come through with a bra and falsies and some padding in the skirt to give Aiba an ass worth grabbing hold of. He just hoped a rocker like Daigo didn't grab straight for his crotch. His wig was blonde and streaked with red, the fake hair itching against his neck. The heeled shoes kept him wobbly and made him a bit tall for a woman, but it was the best they could do.

As he heard the familiar sounds of the Sobu Line docking, he sprayed himself with some of Nari's perfume until he nearly sneezed the false eyelashes off his face. Somewhere in the universe people were making major bank off of false eyelash glue. False eyelash glue!

He heard laughter in the corridor, turning around to find Nino staring at him. "Aiba-san, that color lipstick really suits you."

"I will get you back for this," Aiba insisted, stomping his feet in the pinching shoes.

"You did a fine job," Nino replied. "Except for that voice of yours even I might believe it. Makeup is a marvelous thing."

"I can't compete on Nari's level, but those Net videos are pretty helpful."

While Nino went through the usual docking issues and paperwork as slowly as possible to intentionally attract attention, it allowed Aiba to slip out the rear hatch of the Sobu Line. The ship's presence was probably being relayed to Daigo-san's security team now, so they'd be on the lookout for Aiba and Nino in minutes. Which was just fine since Nino was planning to lead them on a wild goose chase, wandering the numerous casino levels as though he was looking for a way to sneak into the concert venue.

Aiba instead did his best to remain steady on his feet, adjusting his fishnet stockings as he snuck out of the hangar bay and headed straight for the nearest turbolift. Like Royale, the Pretty Guardian Casino and Convention Station was open at all hours of the day. There were businesspeople wandering from meeting to meeting, tourists gawking at the giant roulette wheel mid-station. It was a numbered surface the same as any other roulette wheel, red and black with one green pocket, save for the fact that it took up most of the floor. Pretty Guardian punished infractions by forcing guests to be spun around inside the roulette ball, shamed in front of the crowd if they couldn't pay their tab. The place didn't rely on bounty hunters to hunt down crooks. It simply made them part of the game.

The dressing rooms backstage were just beyond casino level six, the blackjack floor, and he avoided drunken leers from male and female alike as he headed to the back. There was a burly bouncer out front, Pretty Guardian staff and not Daigo's if the suit with the diamond tiara crest on the breast pocket was any indication. Aiba had run afoul of the Pretty Guardian staff before, but this man showed no recognition beyond raising an eyebrow.

"Can I help you, ma'am? Have you lost your party?"

Aiba cleared his throat, raising his voice as high as he could manage and hoping it would just sound like he was drunk. "I'm actually here for Daigo-san. I'm a big fan."

The bouncer shook his head. "No groupies tonight. Maybe after the show."

But then came a laugh from behind them, and Aiba turned to see the famous Daigo-san himself, nestled safely between two burly bodyguards of his own. "Ah, we can let her in," Daigo-san said, his words slurred. "She's a hottie." The guy was already known for being kind of dumb.

He was a grandson of the Emperor, and kind of an embarrassment to the family as he preferred playing in a mediocre rock band to preparing to take power someday. His hair was a ratty, hair-sprayed mess and he was in ripped jeans, a leather jacket, and his signature fingerless gloves. While his bodyguards tried to talk him out of it, Aiba mentally thanked Nari for having insisted on the sparkly false eyelashes and the matching set of fingerless gloves he was now wearing.

"She's got my style," Daigo insisted with a scratchy giggle. "I need a warm-up for the show anyhow."

Though the bodyguards wanted to pat Aiba down, their employer shook his head, taking Aiba by the wrist and tugging him to his dressing room in the back and shutting the door. The room smelled like a rock star cocktail - cheap sake, smoke, and sweaty man crotch. 

Daigo shoved Aiba down into a pile of beanbag chairs that had been stamped "Property of DAIGO," and it took all of his acting know-how to keep from asking about them. Daigo spoke first. "So what's your name, darling?"

Shit, Aiba thought. "Masa...ko." To cover up his long pause, he opted for Daigo's signature 'WISH' hand gesture, bending down his middle and ring fingers and holding up the remaining three on each hand. "Masako Wishhhhhh!"

"Masako Wish! That's like, totally like my Wish thing. Great name!"

Aiba coughed into his fingerless glove to keep from dying of laughter. Finally Daigo decided to get down to business. He got into a strange pose, perhaps to launch into a mating dance of some kind. While rocking back and forth with one leg forward and a hand pressed to his chest, Daigo made eyes at him.

"Tonight's your lucky night, Masako Wish."

"I can't wait." He took in the leather cuff on Daigo's right wrist, seeing a faint glow coming from the material. This was going to be easy. The guy was dumb enough to put his credit uplink in plain sight. 

The fact that he still had a physical credit uplink in this day and age was almost charming. Aiba preferred to log in to his account and confirm his deposits from Kou-san. Otherwise he and Nino liked dealing in physical money, doling themselves out an allowance. And then there were people like Daigo who couldn't seem to put their trust in one of the quadrant's banks, instead keeping an open link to a computer credit storage. All Aiba would have to do was snag the cuff and he could drain Daigo dry. Initially he thought he was going to have to knock the guy out and hack his account.

He wasn't particularly attracted to Daigo-san, even with the mating dance, but he allowed the rocker to stumble forward, eyebrows wiggling suggestively as he knelt down, pushing Aiba further into the beanbag chairs. "It's like I have a squishy fort everywhere I go," Daigo explained, almost like reading Aiba's mind. "It's badass."

"Sure is," Aiba agreed, moving his hands around to grab hold of the guy's ass. He wondered if Nino would let them get some beanbag chairs for the Sobu Line. For his part, Daigo still hadn't seemed to catch on to Aiba's true gender, even now that he was up close and running his fingers through the wig. He was an awful kisser, too, Aiba discovered. Way too much tongue, way too much saliva. It was like making out with a swimming pool. 

"Just so you know, I'm not into dick spray," Daigo slurred, breaking away from Aiba's mouth and winking. "It lessens the sensation, you know?"

Aiba shuddered. Spray-on condoms were the greatest invention since the warp drive. Allergen-free, safe, and 100% effective against the more and more bizarre STDs that were cropping up all over the galaxy, Aiba had long sworn by them. But, he supposed, they didn't fit the risky rock star lifestyle. He merely nodded demurely.

"I'm on my lady time," he replied, hoping Daigo would buy it. 'Dick spray' or no, there was no disguising what Aiba had inside his skirt. "So um, I can just treat you with my mouth."

"Masako Wish!" Daigo replied happily, nearly kneeing Aiba in the crotch as he moved off of him and flopped back against the beanbags. Aiba moved to take off his own fingerless gloves but Daigo shook his head. "No, leave those on."

Aiba took a deep breath, wondering if Kou-san knew the lengths her bounty hunters often went to in order to get her precious money back. He unzipped Daigo's jeans, took his cock in his hand, and wished for the stars.

If there was one thing Aiba had learned well over the years it was giving head. Nino often played hard to get, but Aiba found that going down on someone generally made them super agreeable and easy to trick in less time. "Oh Masako Wish!" Daigo was already groaning, and Aiba ignored the itch of the stupid fishnet stockings to concentrate on the task at hand.

His adeptness in the oral trade always brought results, and before too long, Daigo's gloved hands were tugging on his wig, trying to bring him closer. Aiba powered through, thinking of happier things like the mabo tofu ice cream at the 31,000 Flavors at the Quadrant Midpoint station. Happier things like Kou-san's round breasts and her glittery eyepatch and no Matsumoto Jun there to kill his erection. He brought up one of his hands, sliding it around Daigo's wrist, the one with the credit uplink.

Since Daigo was almost all the way to a completion that would disappoint any groupie expecting rock star stamina, Aiba was easily able to undo a few of the snaps. There was a noisy rustle of the beanbags and soon Daigo was bellowing the incomprehensible and bizarre lyrics to his own songs. Aiba timed his sneak attack perfectly, detaching the cuff from Daigo's wrist just as he arched up off the beanbags with a satisfied groan, filling Aiba's mouth with his release.

"Oh Masako Wish, you're amazing!"

"I know," Aiba said after impolitely spitting onto another of the beanbags, slipping the cuff into his bra. Fully satiated, the rocker could only lie there, basking in the dumb glow of an incredible orgasm while Aiba wiped his mouth with the back of his gloved hand and got to his feet.

"Well, it's been great, but I'd better be going..."

"But Masako Wish, when will I see you again?"

Aiba could only respond by pressing a hand to his heart and rocking back and forth, Daigo-style. "You'll see me again...but only if you try and pull another fast one on Shibasaki Kou! Haha!" He did the hand gesture. "WISH!"

"Wait...wait a minute!" Daigo cried.

And like that Aiba bolted, nearly snapping his ankle as he stumbled for the door. When he pulled it open, one of Daigo's thugs was waiting. Aiba yanked the wig from his head, shoving it in the guy's face. He ducked under the other thug's arm and took off running. The cuff secure inside his bra, he hobble-ran down the corridor, bursting out onto the casino floor. He probably looked ugly without the wig now, but he soon spotted Nino looking overly suspicious by one of the other doors.

"What the fuck are you doing?" his partner screeched, waving him off. "Did you say one of your stupid cowboy lines again? Gods damn it!"

"Stupid cowboy lines" was Ninomiya code for "Did you gloat in the mark's face instead of just leaving?" which Aiba had of course done. It often made their escapes more difficult, at least in Nino's eyes. But Nino was all about sneaking where Aiba was all about being super triumphant. It felt good to have that 'gotcha' moment, after all. It was a mere clash of perspectives, but already Nino had run up and was tugging on Aiba's arm.

"Let's go before he locks down his account, you idiot!"

They made it back to the Sobu Line in record time, Aiba kicking off the heels in the turbolift so he could move faster. He held Daigo's cuff against the Sobu Line's own credit uplink on the bridge, Nino keying in the passcode that would link them directly to Kou's. They watched, nearly out of breath as Daigo's credits depleted. There was barely enough to cover what he owed Kou, so all in all it wasn't as much of a triumph as Aiba had hoped for. Perhaps it wasn't even worth the "Haha!" he'd directed Daigo-san's way before running off.

But maybe, just maybe, it was enough to finally get them that damn FastPass.


	2. Chapter 2

**.Sugar and Spice.**

Nothing made Ninomiya Kazunari happier than pulling the Sobu Line out of the backed up queue and into the FastPass line. After the Daigo job, Kou-san had finally coughed up the credits to reward her two loyal bounty hunters. He had never known such freedom in these past few blissful months, flying right up and seeing the little green light go off at the warp gate. He could just imagine the peons in the queued ships looking up, shaking their fists as the Sobu Line jumped ahead of all of them, gunning across the quadrant. They shaved hours off their flight time, saved on fuel. Hell, they'd even been to some of the casinos in Beta Quadrant that weren't as tightly regulated as those in Alpha. It was living the dream.

But even though the FastPass made Nino as gleeful as could be, he knew that at the same time he and Aiba were now marked men. Any no account asshole at a hangar bay could be bought, Nino had always known that. He'd bought his fair share of them himself, sneaking credits to get on board marks' ships to steal back Kou's money on the regular.

So now one of them always had to stay with the ship when they were docked. Even in the relative safety of Royale's docking bay they switched off, one of them staying inside with a blaster set to stun in case someone snuck aboard and tried to pry the thing off the console. FastPass technology wasn't the most advanced of all technologies. Warp drives, warp gates, massive ships and space stations. That was where the R&D money went. 

The FastPass was just welded into the ship's nav system, a chunky metal contraption that anyone with basic mechanical know-how could snag. All you had to do was detach it without electrocuting yourself, file off the serial numbers, get fake credentials, and install it on your own ship. Doing official business for Kou-san all these years meant he and Aiba had had to wait to get a legit FastPass. And now that they had one Nino was paranoid as fuck about losing it.

It had already been a solid month without drinking. Even on nights when it was Aiba's turn to stay in the hangar bay instead of their tiny employee quarters on board Royale, Nino found himself taking the turbolift to the bay, scouting around looking for trouble. For anyone who knew the Sobu Line had that magical line-jumping piece of tech inside her.

It was one of those nights tonight, Nino lying on the bottom bunk inside their quarters, staring at the metal bulkhead. Just above him, he knew that Kou-san's best guys and girls were drinking, laughing, entertaining clients. It used to help him sleep, knowing that business was going on as usual. That people were fucking and getting fucked and doing whatever else they liked on board the station. It was a comfort, somehow.

But there was no sleeping now because he knew Aiba was down there, sitting on the Sobu Line bridge and probably sleeping through proximity alarms. Nino had rigged up half a dozen new alarm settings in the past month, some that would go straight through to his own communicator if someone not him or Aiba came within a few yards of the ship. He tossed and turned, almost as though he was expecting his CommChip to go off.

He was irritable during the day, unable to sleep at night. He knew Aiba was sick of it too. Masaki had long been the trusting type, the "whatever happens, happens" type. If the FastPass disappeared off the bridge, Aiba would simply smile and say it was the nature of the business they were in, a consequence of the life they led as bullies and thieves. He found Nino's FastPass concern to be too much. Nino found Aiba's lack of concern to be reckless.

And then his fears were confirmed shortly after 3:00 AM Royale time. His CommChip squealed with a proximity alert, and he nearly flipped off the bunk, catching himself with a hand to the floor. He grabbed his blaster and yanked on the nearest pair of pants, Aiba's he discovered too late since they were two sizes too big at the waist. But his FastPass was in danger, and there was no time to look good.

Holding the oversized trousers up with one hand and his blaster in the other, he flew out of their quarters, eyes burning at the sudden shift from their dark quarters and into the stinky, incense-ridden, decently lit corridor. He forced his way onto the turbolift, sharing the ride down with a pair of businessmen who looked like they'd spent more money at Royale that night than they'd anticipated.

Nino surged out of the turbolift once it reached the hangar bay, but he was held back behind the safety screen. The launch alarm blared. Somewhere in the bay another ship had been given the all clear, and they were heading toward the bay doors and out into space. He paced like a caged animal until the alarm went off and the screen lifted, indicating it was once again safe for people to walk around the level.

"Fuck fuck fucking fuck fuck fuckity fuck fuck fuck," he grumbled, racing through the bay to the Sobu Line's berth. It was gone already, he just knew it was gone. Grease monkeys and other hangar bay slackers stared at him as he ran, some of them chuckling as they hauled around the giant fuel hoses. He found the ship looking none the worse for wear, save for the pair of sticky red lipstick marks adorning the main hatch.

Of course it was them, Nino realized. Of course.

He keyed in his passcode and the hatch opened. "Masaki, I am going to shove something enormous up your ass and make you dance a jig until it falls out!"

He found Aiba looking sheepish on the bridge where he was lying on the floor, hogtied. Nino even recognized the white glittery scarf that had been shoved into his partner's mouth. A batch of wires sat limply on top of the nav system, and the FastPass had been ganked.

"Why did you even let them in?" Nino complained, collapsing into his pilot's seat and letting out an angry moan, resting his feet on top of Aiba's back.

"Mmmffhffmmmmhmm!" Aiba tried to explain, wiggling around.

Nino let him stew for a minute before finally taking the scarf from his mouth. "If Kou even finds out they were on board Royale we're fucked. Seriously fucked. F-U-C..."

"I can spell that word," Aiba mumbled. "Thanks very much."

"So let me imagine the situation," Nino said, leaning back in his seat. "You're here, you're lonely, you see the two of them standing in the hangar bay and you go, hmm, they haven't screwed me over in the past or anything, I'll let them right on board..."

"I didn't...I wasn't thinking..."

"Oh you were thinking," Nino said. "You were thinking with your dick, as usual!"

Aiba pouted, sticking out his bottom lip. "Nino, you know they have a FastPass of their own, so I didn't think they'd come and steal ours."

He got out of his seat, kicking the bulkhead. Which in hindsight was a bad call because he hadn't even taken the time to put on his boots before running out of their quarters. He hopped around, almost in tears.

"What, you thought this was a social visit? They're thieves, you imbecile! T-H-I-E..."

"Why do you always spell when you're angry with me?" Aiba mumbled.

"Where were they going?" he asked, hobbling back to his seat and rubbing his foot. "They usually leave a clue."

Aiba looked away. "That's the problem..."

"They didn't leave a clue?"

"No, they um..." Aiba gulped. "They actually told me where they were going."

"And where is that?"

"Nino, we're being head hunted."

-

If Shibasaki Kou and Royale ruled the Alpha Quadrant's high-class sex trade, then it was the Zebra Queen who ruled the Beta Quadrant. It hadn't always been that way. After the war, Kou had invested in two stations - Royale in the Alpha Quadrant and The Zoo in Beta. In the early days, Kou traveled back and forth between them, hiring on staff, gaining client trust. It was a sex empire with her eye-patched self at the head of it. But fuel was expensive and the Empire regulated travel at the warp gates all the more, squeezing every credit they could out of the ships flying about.

After a few years, she'd allowed The Zoo to be managed by one of her kohai, a young little obedient nobody named Riisa-chan from some Beta Quadrant planet that produced people with good math skills and without gag reflexes. Ideal for the sex trade, both in management and in the practice.

Trusting Riisa-chan had been Shibasaki Kou's first and last mistake, though she'd never admit it publicly. Way off in Beta and without her master dictating terms, Riisa-chan turned The Zoo into the anti-Royale. No perfumed corridors, no super-private fetish-only levels. No secrets and satin sheets. The Zoo became just that - a Zoo. Cages instead of rooms. A primal, animalistic feel. Even the prostitutes there wore animal-print fetish gear. Submissively dressed bunnies and fawns. Dominatrix kitties with their fingernails sharpened into pointed claws.

You didn't go to The Zoo to get your rocks off behind closed doors. You went to The Zoo to watch or be watched. And at the head of it was a woman Kou-san had underestimated, a woman who'd started out in glasses and pigtails and a schoolgirl's uniform, calling herself Megane-chan.

She was a brilliant marketer, Nino had to give her that. Riisa threw herself fully into the Zoo re-branding and emerged as the Zebra Queen, the Beta Quadrant's top madam. Before Kou knew it Riisa had raised enough credits to buy the station from her. The two women were now fierce rivals, and only the quadrant boundaries and the sheer vastness of space kept them from engaging in full-out war.

But a Cold War was ongoing, and Nino knew that the Zebra Queen was itching to get a foothold in Alpha Quadrant, to take a bite out of Kou-san's bottom line. Where Kou preferred to keep things above-board, to act within the limits of Imperial law, the Zoo was known for its lawlessness. And its enforcers were just as infamous as their Queen, crossing into Alpha to keep their mistress' interests in play.

Rebecca Vaughn, orphaned in a Gamma Quadrant conflict, and Kuroki Meisa, an escort turned cat burglar, were the Zebra Queen's best thugs, or in essence, the Beta Quadrant's answer to Nino and Aiba. Or at least that was how Nino and Aiba saw it. Becky and Meisa had one of the fastest little ships in the galaxy, the Emerald, and most people didn't even know their real names.

Given who their employer was, they were better known for their costumes. For Becky who always wore flowing, angelic white with glitter in her hair and called herself Sugar. For Meisa who always wore skin-tight black vinyl spandex and stiletto heels and called herself Spice. Nino and Aiba went from port to port, hearing nothing but praise for the two women.

Sure, they were hot and they had flair but at the end of the day they were rivals. And they were definitely not to be trusted, given who they worked for. Time and time again, Nino and Aiba had gone after a mark, only to discover that the infamous Sugar and Spice had gotten to them first and smuggled them off to Beta Quadrant. Where Kou was content to just steal her money back, the Zebra Queen liked selling people into sexual servitude at The Zoo, even if they'd never crossed her. As though she was challenging Kou to do something about her wayward customers.

And like the hunters aboard the Sobu Line, Sugar and Spice liked to gamble. Nino had lost countless credits to them at the casino tables in Alpha and Beta alike. Sometimes when it came right down to it, it was simply a matter of pride. 

But this time was different. This time it wasn't a competition. They'd come right into Royale, right onto the Sobu Line, and they'd stolen their FastPass. If they wanted it back, Meisa had explained to Aiba, all that they had to do was come to The Zoo. And listen to a business proposal. 

The Zebra Queen was looking to hire them, Aiba said, to let Sugar and Spice maintain Beta and not have to worry about Alpha troubles. The Zebra Queen wanted to snatch them away from Kou, and she was willing to pay them double. 

-

"Yep," Nino said with a nod as soon as Aiba finished explaining. "Trap."

"What?" Aiba gasped, still fumbling around with his wrists and ankles tied. "But Spice-chan said..."

"Don't fucking call that spandex-wearing bitch 'Spice-chan.'"

"Ah Nino, just because she turned you down..."

"Don't bring that up!" Nino fumed. 

There was only the one time. That one time before he'd known who they were working for. Before he'd known that Sugar and Spice were partners in every possible way. And that totally wasn't the reason why he hated them. No, gods damn it, it was the fact that they worked for the enemy. Couldn't Aiba see past that? Ugh, he thought, they'd probably made out in front of him again. That juvenile type of distraction always worked on perverts like Aiba. Today wasn't the first time they'd hogtied him and left him for Nino to find.

"Well anyhow, Spice-chan said it was legit," Aiba continued. "Double pay, a revamp for the ship. I thought you'd be excited by this kind of offer, Nino. You like money."

"I like money, but I have principles!" When Aiba gave him a suspicious look, Nino just rolled his eyes. "Alright the money sounds amazing, but we already have an employer who could probably have us killed. And you want us to double cross her to work for someone even more psychotic? Really?"

Aiba looked down at the floor. "Well, um, what if we just...you know, heard her out..."

"At The Zoo?"

"Well...yeah." Aiba was blushing now.

Nino sighed. "You are the most predictable person I have ever met."

 

**.Queen of the Jungle.**

It was fun to have rivals. Aiba had always thought so. But it was even more fun to have friends. He'd always been drawn to vids on the Net where enemies teamed up to fight an even greater enemy. He thought that maybe, just maybe, someday that greater enemy would arrive and the Sobu Line and the Emerald could team up. Maybe some super brothel would open up on the other side of the wormhole in Gamma Quadrant. Royale and The Zoo would join forces, fly through the wormhole and shut things down. Ensure that the Alpha-Beta space stations of sex stayed at the top.

Then they could all celebrate! And Kou-san would open her arms and let Aiba in for a hug of triumph. Then maybe more than a hug. "Oh Aiba-kun," she'd say, batting her eye. "You can have your pick of the Cherry on Top guys and girls! But please do consider me as well!" And it would all be thanks to the Emerald's help...

Nino, however, wasn't interested in any sort of friendship or alliance with Sugar and Spice, and thus their enmity was bound to remain. 

But Nino had at least agreed to fly over to The Zoo where the infamous Zebra Queen was holding their precious FastPass hostage. His reasoning had been that if they actually reported the FastPass' loss to Kou-san, they'd be out of a job. They'd lose the ship. So they really had no choice but to listen to the Zebra Queen's demands, even if they were going to turn her down.

It was another week before they had leave to actually head to Beta Quadrant, and Nino was wandering the Royale corridors day and night muttering to himself about the stupid FastPass and how long it was going to take them to get to Beta. Nino had been nearly impossible to deal with ever since the thing had been installed on the bridge, and Aiba was ready to smack him.

But now they were on their way. With the hold-ups at the warp gates scattered across Alpha and Beta, it took them nearly two days to reach The Zoo. Nino had assumed the whole thing was going to be a trap anyhow, that Sugar and Spice had lied. That it was just a ploy to get them on board The Zoo and snap blackmail photos to send back to Kou, another reason to fire them. 

Sugar and Spice themselves were waiting in the hangar bay when Nino and Aiba left the Sobu Line. Sugar-chan linked arms with Nino, tugging him close while her partner walked up to Aiba with a smirk. "I see you finally made it," Spice said, raising one of her shapely eyebrows at him. 

"We would have been here earlier if a vital part of our ship hadn't been snatched," Nino shot back, wriggling out of Sugar's hold.

Sugar and Spice exchanged a glance and then a grin. "Poor babies!" the two women cried in little kid voices.

"Come on, losers, let's go!" Sugar declared, kicking Nino straight in the ass with her sparkly white platform boot.

The Zoo really kind of stunk. Much as the scent of Royale tickled Aiba's nose and made him a bit dizzy, it wasn't nearly as awful as this. The Zoo must have been piping in the scent of animal shit or something in the turbolifts. Nino looked ready to retch, and Sugar and Spice merely giggled at them. 

"Marketing," Nino grumbled under his breath.

As befitting guests of the Zebra Queen herself, Sugar and Spice brought them straight up to the top of the space station. The shit smell thankfully vanished as the doors whooshed open, but there was a new smell now. Lube and sweat and come. Not the worst smells, but the open decorating plan made Aiba nearly go cross-eyed from visual stimulation.

Where Kou's station was full of closed doors, privacy screens, and diaphanous curtains, The Zoo really was a Zoo, even the Queen's level. As they walked across the floor, Aiba couldn't keep his eyes forward. To either side of him there were metal bars and people inside them going at it. Some of the 'cages' even had beds. To his left he saw a woman in leather whipping some guy in the ass with a riding crop. To his right, a woman was lying on her back with her legs spread wide, crying out in ecstasy as three other women licked and sucked at her breasts and abdomen while a fourth woman with a green mohawk and a strap-on was penetrating her.

"Pervert!" Sugar teased him, giving Aiba a poke in the side.

"I'm not," Aiba complained, tugging at the waistband of his trousers uncomfortably. "They're just...right there...doing that..."

"We're here on business," Nino insisted, though Aiba could tell from the distracted sound in his voice that he was discovering a previously unknown desire for ladies with mohawks and strap-ons.

Spice jabbed Aiba between his shoulder blades. "Keep moving. Nobody keeps the Queen waiting."

"How much does that cost?" Aiba found himself asking, jabbing his thumb back behind him at the four-on-one. "Just curious."

"More than you make in a decade," Sugar said cheerfully, moving to key in a code at the only set of closed doors on the entire level.

Reinforced titanium, maybe a solid foot thick. The Zebra Queen's security was on a whole other level from Kou-san's. The doors slid open with a squeal of metal, and there she was. Where Kou's boudoir was feminine and sensual, the Queen's domain was unforgiving and cold. The floor was onyx tile, slit up the middle in a silver color that directed all eyes in the room to a raised platform.

As befitting a "monarch," the Zebra Queen sat in a dark black chair wrapped in what to Aiba looked like jungle vines. She rose to her feet, lips twisting into a wicked smile as Sugar and Spice forced them onto their knees.

Her hair was jet black, a ferocious mass of wild tangles that fell to her waist. She was clad in a zebra-striped corset that barely contained her breasts along with black satin panties and thigh high leather boots. Her face was powdered white save for a band of black paint that ran in a horizontal stripe across her eyes. Aiba had never been so frightened or so turned on in his life. Basically, he was a ball of confusion at present.

He glanced over at Nino, who had a rather unattractive bit of drool trailing out from the side of his mouth. Yeah, all his grandstanding about having principles and integrity and not wanting Kou-san to murder them had seemingly vanished in an instant.

The Zebra Queen remained up by her throne, lifting her hands to the sky. "Boys, boys, boys. Welcome to The Zoo!"

Spice ruffled Aiba's hair. "This one is Aiba."

"And this little weasel is Ninomiya," Sugar said sweetly, patting Nino on the shoulder.

The Queen nodded. "Kou-chan's little errand boys. I presume you were informed of my terms."

"They were, Majesty," Spice said, inclining her head. "Double their pay and a new ship to do your bidding in the Alpha Quadrant."

"Doesn't it sound lovely?" the Zebra Queen asked. It sounded like she normally had a cute little high-pitched voice, but was lowering it for theatrical effect. "The thought of doing my bidding?"

"Yes!" Aiba replied enthusiastically at the same time Nino wiped his mouth and let out a noisy "No, thank you."

The Queen frowned. "It seems you two are lacking in communication skills. What is it? Yes or no?"

Aiba moved to speak but Nino silenced him with a sharp look. His partner looked back at the Zebra Queen. 

"No offense," Nino said, "But we already have a job. While your offer sounds super neat and I'm sure you provide a fine benefits package, your two friends here stole our hard-earned FastPass, and I have found that dirty tricks, theft, and coercion do not make for the happiest work environment. We are obviously thrilled by the offer and pleased to be under consideration, but at present we will remain under Shibasaki-san's employ. So thank you." The Zebra Queen didn't even blink, and Nino fumbled his words a bit. "Uh, thanks. Um, can we have our FastPass back please?"

Aiba shut his eyes, waiting for the woman to whip out some sort of torture device and pin them to it. Or to pull out a knife from her boot and fling it at them. She certainly seemed capable. But instead she just sighed, hands on her shapely hips.

"Seriously? I was going to pay you double!" The Zebra Queen voice completely vanished, replaced with an impatient little whine. She looked almost cute now, standing there with her giant hair. "What does Kou-senpai have that I don't?"

"Doors, for one," Nino muttered.

The Zebra Queen stomped her feet childishly. "You're going to regret this!" When Nino and Aiba gasped, the woman just rolled her eyes. "Oh I meant from a business standpoint, you stupid idiots. You'll regret this when I hire someone better! And your piece of crap ship falls apart!"

"We're...sorry?" Nino said, holding up his hands in apology.

Sugar and Spice cleared their throats, seemingly reminding their employer that she had a reputation to uphold because the "voice" and temperament were back in seconds. The Zebra Queen moved down from her raised throne, walking up to them with fury in her eyes.

"Well then. Consider the Beta Quadrant's legs closed to you," she said huffily, lip curling. "From New Kyushu to Monju, you will not get laid."

Nino shrugged his shoulders. "The price we're willing to pay, Your Majesty. So about that FastPass..."

She looked between Aiba and Nino and back again, crossing her arms. "I would be such a better boss than Kou-san. I offer plenty of perks that she doesn't."

Nino kept a stiff upper lip. Aiba had a feeling something else was stiff, but his partner's fear of Kou's retaliation seemed to be winning out. "If Kou-san knew what you were doing, she'd retaliate. And that would be bad for business all around. But as a courtesy to you and your fine establishment, we won't tell her what happened here today. Please return our FastPass." Nino snuck a peek behind him, sticking his tongue out at Sugar and Spice. "Oh, and it would be a real kindness if you stopped sending your she-wolves after us all the time. Surely the galaxy's big enough for us all to get along."

The Queen frowned. "Very well. I can see that neither of you have much in the way of business sense. Sugar-chan, I trust that you'll have their stupid mechanical thingie reinstalled by the time I'm done with him."

"Wait," Aiba interrupted, holding up a hand in his panic. "Done with who?"

"Yes, ma'am," Sugar replied obediently, bowing and leaving the room with Spice at her heels.

"Now," the Zebra Queen said, licking her lips and looking between them. "If our formal business is concluded, it's time for some informal business. I'm not letting you leave until one of you has gotten me off. Who's bigger downstairs, may I check?"

When her black manicured fingernails came plucking at their trousers, he and Nino jumped back. "Hold on," Nino said. "Wait a minute..."

"If I can't own you I'd at least like to give you a test drive," the woman pouted. "Sample the merchandise. Come now, you're both cute, and even if you won't betray Kou-senpai, I know you can't pass up this opportunity. Don't make me tie you down, boys."

"I volunteer!" Aiba shouted, thrusting his hand to the sky and waving it furiously.

Nino rolled his eyes. "Of course you would."

The Zebra Queen clapped her hands playfully. "Oh good. I swear, this interview process has been a nightmare. Trying to find someone who fits our workplace culture, it's a crap shoot!" She turned to Nino. "Maybe next time, FastPass-san. Go back to your ship. I promise your friend will be returned to you, mostly unharmed."

Aiba suddenly realized what he'd agreed to, watching Nino sigh and head for the exit. The massive titanium door closed, leaving him alone with the Zebra Queen. The most infamous woman in the Beta Quadrant wanted to sample his merchandise. Well, Aiba was always quick to take one for the team, and he supposed this wouldn't be too big a sacrifice on his part.

He scanned the room, still seeing only the throne on the raised platform. "Um, do you have a bed?"

She smiled sweetly at him. Well, he supposed 'sweetly' was the intent, but the gnarled hair and painted face still made her look a bit scary. "Not in here, no. I usually sleep in one of the cages. I find that in my line of work you need to be where the people are. To best understand your customers."

"I see."

She was circling him, eyeing him up and down like he was a ship on the sales block at one of the Empire's liquidation events. She prodded along his ribs, slid her fingers along the waistband of his trousers. Squeezed his shoulders. What was she going to do to him? "How much can you lift? Could you lift me?"

He nodded. "I could lift you, no problem."

She smiled again. "That's what I like to hear. Very good. Go stand by the door, we'll fuck over there."

Aiba Masaki certainly enjoyed being with a woman who was straight to the point. He couldn't help but obey, marching over as directed, already feeling his cock start to strain against the fabric of his slacks. She moved to the rear of the room, finding a compartment in the wall that slid open. She returned, her heels clicking against the tile, with a small bottle of prophylactic spray and a zebra-striped egg.

She held the items out, raising up the spray bottle. "I know you have a long trip back to Alpha and that Cyclops of a boss, so we'll go for the five minute special. Hold on to this."

He accepted the bottle. She then held up the egg, giving the thing a light twist. It started to buzz at an alarming speed.

"This is Z-chan, my best friend," the Queen said, holding the tiny vibrator out. "I come first. Make it happen."

He stood there, mouth slightly agape as she pulled her panties down, negotiating the fabric over the tops of her boots and pulling them all the way down, kicking them away. She was completely shaved bare, and Aiba found himself smiling at the sight of the zebra tattoo revealed on the soft skin below her navel. It was even wearing a crown. Marketing, Nino would say.

Her eyes flashed within the dark stripe painted across her face, and she leaned back against the cold titanium door, beckoning him with her fingers. She pushed her hair back behind her shoulders, waiting for him. He approached slowly, trying not to trip over his own feet as he shoved the prophylactic spray in his pants pocket.

She was nearly as tall as him in her boots, and he smiled before moving down to look at her breasts, to the pale, rounded tops of them where they nearly spilled from her corset. The buzzing vibrator was already making his hand a bit numb. This woman was not joking around with her toys. He held it firmly between his thumb and fingers, nudging it in small, teasing circles against the zebra tattoo while he kissed his way along the edge where her corset met skin.

This seemed to please the Zebra Queen, which boded well for Aiba. If he screwed this up, maybe she'd still find a way to sabotage things. Nino, of course, was probably still waiting for a trap to be sprung.

She spread her legs wider and tugged at the black and white laces on the front of her corset, loosening it enough for her breasts to pop free. Aiba groaned, remembering her adamant "I come first" policy. He dragged the vibrator down, hearing her pleased moan as he drew the quivering egg along her sensitive lips. He moved it back and forth between them, the buzzing sound dulling as he pressed it against her.

It was chilly in her chambers and it had to be cold with her back against that door too. Her nipples hardened at the approach of his tongue, circling one greedily before sliding it between his lips. She started to rock her hips in time with his movements, following the vibrator's journey from her opening to her clit and back again.

"Z-chan, yes," she was murmuring, clearly more impressed with the vibrator's power than Aiba's ability to wield it. As she moved, so did that mane of hair, bits of it tickling Aiba's nose as his mouth ventured from one of her breasts to another. "Faster. Faster, Z-chan."

Aiba complied, rubbing the vibrator more urgently against her, letting her own movements and noises of heightened pleasure guide him. Soon she was bucking against the thing, and Aiba took his mouth away from her before it became too cumbersome. He focused on the task at hand, seeing her shut her eyes and give in to the strong pulsing between her legs. He could feel the power of the little egg all the way to his wrist as he tried to hold it steady and firm against her.

"Give it to me," she told him, holding out her hand. He obeyed, turning control of the vibrator over to its master. "I'm ready. You better be."

His hand still throbbed with the sensation from the vibrator, and he fumbled with his zipper, nearly ripping his trousers as he yanked them down and his underwear with them. He prepared the spray bottle, his eyes barely able to focus because she was back against the door, one hand cupping and squeezing one of her own breasts as she worked the vibrator over her clit. He thanked the inventor of the spray-on condom once again - no clumsy wrappers to deal with. Just aim and spray and let nanotechnology take charge.

He coated himself from shaft to tip, biting his lip at the usual tingling feeling as the foamy substance solidified, coating his erection in a thin, safe sheen. "I'm ready," he said, really and truly happy that he'd volunteered to have sex with the crazy woman who'd stolen their FastPass and pulled them across the universe. Nino didn't know what he was missing.

She ignored him for a moment, her hand finally stilling as she let out a cry of happiness. And then she flung the zebra-striped egg away and opened her eyes. So much for poor Z-chan.

"Now fuck me."

He stumbled forward, reaching for her. She barely gave him a warning before wrapping her arms around his neck and hopping aboard. He cried out in shock, her booted legs pretzeling around him. No wonder she'd asked how much he could lift. He backed her against the door sharply enough to make her cry out in approval, getting a mess of hair in his mouth and nearly choking on it.

"Come on!" she demanded, and he did his best to comply, guiding his cock to her. She had just come, and her body was still working through its aftershocks as he slid inside her, feeling her clench around him, hard and demanding.

From there it was an uphill battle, thrusting up and into her as she clung to him, yanking on his hair so hard he thought he was going to return to the Sobu Line bald. He was sweating furiously, his brain happily relinquishing all control over to his cock as he did his best to fill her again and again. His mind wandered, thinking of the sights he'd seen throughout The Zoo. He understood this place better now, the appeal of it. The sheer primal urges. She smelled like leather and sex, her Queen voice taking over, demanding more and more of him.

The stiletto heels of her damn boots were digging into his thighs, and he adjusted a bit to avoid the pain. Apparently it was the right adjustment because she was coming again, squeezing his dick again, her inner muscles coaxing him right along into one of the best orgasms he'd ever had.

"That," she managed to say a few moments later, patting him on the head. "Now that was worth giving you your FastPass back."

When he'd cleaned up and staggered his way back to the Sobu Line, half drunk off of his crazy encounter, he found Nino on the bridge with a blowtorch and a metal face mask, soldering the FastPass into the nav console. Aiba doubted it would budge ever again. He cut the torch when Aiba made his entrance.

His partner sighed. "Well? Are we cleared for departure?"

Aiba grinned. "We are all clear."


	3. Chapter 3

**.Interlude: Satoshi.**

Nino munched on the ice from his drink angrily. This year was simply not going his way. Sure, they had their FastPass back, and Kou-san hadn't found them out, but they'd returned from Beta Quadrant to different circumstances. All of Nino's posturing, all of his protests about going against Kou-san, had been for nothing.

He'd been a loyal employee and he'd even passed on wild sex with the crazy Zebra Queen to remain bounty hunter for his original boss. He'd done everything in his power to keep the status quo at Royale, and they'd come back to find Matsumoto Jun heading up a brand new project. A new payments system was now in effect throughout the space station to weed out undesirables. Kou-san's operation now took both physical credits and bank transfers, but everyone had to pay in advance before any services were rendered. It wasn't traditional for the trade, but clients seemed to be dealing with it well.

Regulars already knew what they would receive from their favorite guys or girls, so paying upfront was no trouble. And Royale had a good, clean reputation (compared to a free-for-all like The Zoo) so people expected to get their money's worth. But for Nino and Aiba, who had made their careers on chasing assholes who skipped out on their tabs, it meant their services were no longer required. 

He'd gone up to Kou's office himself to complain, sitting for almost three hours in her sterile little waiting room and having a battle of scowls with Matsumoto, who was just as stressed as ever. The assistant was still in the middle of notifying far-flung customers about the payment switcheroo and negotiating with their marketing team to change all the thousands of Royale pop-up ads on the Net. And when Nino had finally gotten in to see Kou-san, clad in nothing but rose petals in order to "center her flower essence," she'd only rolled her eye at his concerns.

"Ah, but Nino-chan, you're not out of a job. I have so many wonderful things for you and Aiba-chan to do for me."

None of them, unfortunately, involved plucking each rose petal off of her with a set of tweezers. That was probably Matsumoto's job.

No, they had plummeted in importance. They still had their ship, but there was little to be done in terms of espionage and thievery now. For the time being (and mostly because of their FastPass), their new job was to escort guests. Some of the higher end clients didn't much like having to use their own ships to dock at Royale, especially if word got back to the wife. And so now Nino and Aiba would meet guests at neutral locations, shuttle them to Royale for their encounters, and then return them to their home planets and stations.

It was dull as fuck, and Nino almost regretted having turned down the Zebra Queen. Somehow her two lesbian underlings-in-chief had already found out about Nino and Aiba's sudden demotion, and he and Aiba had received a video message from Sugar and Spice that merely consisted of them pointing and laughing at the camera for seventeen minutes straight.

He was underworked and underpaid and underfucked, and all because he'd been more frightened of a woman with an eyepatch than a woman who dressed as a zebra. What had happened to his life?

Tonight was yet another dull night, and he found himself at Lalapipo, trying to make eyes at Nari. But unfortunately the bartender had guests in town, a trio of crossdressers with blinding, sequin-covered dresses who smelled like fourteen different kinds of perfume. It kept Nino from the bar, hidden in the back nursing his top-shelf liquor. 

Aiba had a few days' vacation and was back home visiting family, leaving Nino alone to shuttle some of Royale's creepiest guests. Tomorrow morning he was due to pick up some government prick named Kaname who was totally, ridiculously hot but totally, ridiculously creepy. He paid a premium to sit in a room with five of Kou-san's best girls, jamming his nose into the thongs they held out to him and taking a whiff. Five girls and he didn't even fuck them. He was even entered in Royale's computer system as "The Panty Sniffer."

To each his own, Nino had always thought, but he'd be stuck with the guy for hours tomorrow, and it was going to be almost impossible listening to someone that fucking attractive discuss women's underwear and the benefits of cotton over lace the entire time.

He crunched down on another ice cube and sulked. The crossdressers cheered, Nari flirted with them and paid Nino not a lick of attention, and the hours went by, bringing him closer to his miserable day with The Panty Sniffer.

It was nearly closing time when he got up from his booth and headed for the exit. But he'd misjudged his timing, colliding with someone hard and ending up with a pitcher of Gamma ale down the front of his shirt and the shirt of the other guy.

"Oh shit," the guy whispered, looking at Nino sheepishly. "My bad."

Nino frowned. Like he needed anything else tonight. He sighed heavily, feeling the ale soak into his shirt and drip down to his slacks. He hated Gamma ale. Only idiots drank the watered-down bitter schlock, so he looked at the man in possession of the pitcher. The other guy had borne the brunt of it, soaked from chest to toe in the stuff. He was close to Nino in height, with sleepy eyes and a round, completely calm face despite their collision. Great, an unapologetic drunk.

The guy scratched at his head, holding the empty pitcher up. "I'm sorry, did I ruin your clothes, man?"

"You did, man," Nino said pointedly. He needed to get out of here, needed to get out of this icy underground shithole bar and into his shower.

"Like, I can get you a new shirt from my ship to replace yours," the drunk guy slurred, patting Nino on the shoulder. "Just come with me."

Nari was looking over from the bar, and Nino fumed when the bartender gave him a suggestive wink. Were his options really this bad tonight? The guy was kind of cute with his light spiky hair and gentle smile, but did he really want to hook up with someone who drank Gamma ale?

"I have clothes of my own..."

"No, man," Drunk Guy continued. "I insist. I totally killed your evening. Come on, with me."

Nino had little choice but to follow Gamma Ale from Lalapipo, taking the lift back to the hangar bay. They passed the promise of the Sobu Line, ending up in a much smaller hunk of junk tucked into the corner of the bay. 'Freestyle' was imprinted on the ship's hull, but from the number of loose cables sticking out from the ship's back end, it seemed like the Freestyle was not currently operational.

They entered the ship, and Nino shivered at the sight of hundreds of pairs of eyes. From floor to ceiling of the guy's living quarters were boxes. Some of those boxes were open, and within were carved figurines with big mouths and creepy eyes.

"You sell these?"

"I make them," the guy said proudly, closing the Freestyle's hatch behind him. "And then I sell them. Ah, pardon the mess, I've got a bit of a backlog right now on account of, you know, being stuck here. Warp drive's shot."

Nino figured the guy spent more money making his creepy figurines than maintaining his ship. They meandered around the box fort, passing a room that smelled oddly like women's perfume (a girlfriend? a co-pilot?) before arriving at the bathroom in the rear by the engine room.

"I'm Satoshi, by the way, sorry for spilling on you." He held out a sticky, ale-covered hand.

Nino kept his own sticky hands to himself. "Nino."

"I'll go grab you some clothes. Please feel free to use the shower."

Nino blinked at the guy. "Huh?"

Satoshi just smiled his lazy smile. "You don't want to clean up before putting on some new clothes?"

"My ship's just over on the other side of the bay, the Sobu Line. I can do that there. I'll just take the shirt, alright? Thanks for your generosity."

Satoshi shook his head, clapping his sticky hand on Nino's shoulder. "I insist."

The guy was pretty damn strong for his size, squeezing Nino's shoulder tightly. "Well, alright," Nino said. His top-shelf liquor, much as he'd tried to water it down and make it last, was catching up with him. He was just drunk enough to decide it was fine to shower in some weirdo sculptor's piece of shit ship. He remembered the encouraging look Nari had given him. Maybe Nino just needed to relax and let things happen.

Satoshi smiled when Nino entered the bathroom, shutting the door in his face. He frowned - the lock was broken. What part of this ship actually did work? He hoped there was at least warm water in the shower, and that the ice moon's temperatures hadn't frozen the Freestyle's pipes after sitting for so long.

He stripped down in a huff, upset at the loss of a decent pair of slacks and a well-fitted shirt. At least this Satoshi was the same size. He shoved his boots in a corner of the bathroom, flinging his wet, ale-soaked clothes in another corner. There was only a shower stall with a glass door, no tub, and he pulled it open. He couldn't help smiling at the bright pink shampoo and soap bottles inside the shower. Satoshi had rather girly taste.

He turned on the spray, and though the water smelled pretty funny (probably recycled one too many times on the crappy ship), it was good and hot and slowly the stench of Gamma ale started washing away down the drain. He pumped some of the girly soap into his palms, running his hands over his body. Hmm, not bad. He was just rinsing off when he heard the bathroom door open.

"Satoshi, just leave the shirt, alright?"

But then there was a whoosh of cool air as the glass door opened and Satoshi himself appeared. "Hello!"

Nino shrieked, twisting in the shower that was maybe built for one and a half but certainly not for two. Satoshi seemed unfazed with that calm look of his as he pulled the door closed, trapping them together.

"I'm sticky," the guy announced.

"I was almost done!" Nino protested, though he couldn't exactly keep himself from looking down and seeing the guy's body. He was short but kept himself in good shape, with a well-toned stomach and arms. Beneath a mound of dark hair, Satoshi's cock was already hard, perking up in time with Satoshi's own smile.

Nino scowled at him. "You...you spilled that beer on purpose."

Satoshi grinned. "You looked really miserable in that booth by yourself, man. But the spill really was an accident." Satoshi shut his eyes and sighed happily, letting whatever water didn't hit Nino glide down the smooth planes of his body.

Nino moved for the door. "Look, there's not a lot of room in here..."

"Plenty of room if I do this," Satoshi said, crouching down behind Nino, his feet squeaking against the bottom of the shower stall. He gave Nino a tap on his backside. "You have a nice butt."

Nino fumed, looking awkwardly over his shoulder as the water in the shower seemed to grow warmer, the steam starting to build. "Seriously, what the fuck is your deal?"

But then Satoshi's hands were firm, one on each of Nino's thighs, squeezing with a sudden sharpness that made Nino's cock twitch. "Nino, you talk a lot. Shut up."

This was not how Nino expected to spend his evening, but already Satoshi was reaching for a washcloth, smoothing it up and down each of Nino's legs, scrubbing him clean. 

"I'm fairly certain there's no Gamma ale on the back of my knee..."

"Quiet, I said."

Nino didn't know why, but he found himself obeying this weird guy. He shut his mouth and let the guy wash him. The water in the shower was smelling odder and odder by the moment. He wanted to say something, but the washcloth was moving up and up, moving between his thighs. He found himself spreading his legs, even though seconds earlier the idea had seemed so preposterous.

He gasped, bracing himself with his hands against the wall of the shower stall, leaning forward and letting the spray cascade down his back. Though he was fairly certain there was no Gamma ale on the back of his knee, Nino was especially certain there was no Gamma ale around his asshole. And yet Satoshi was moving the cloth there, rubbing against his puckered hole with no shame.

"What...what are you..."

"Relax. You looked so sad in the club. Let me make you feel better."

Satoshi moved quickly, reaching a hand between Nino's legs and adjusting one of the taps on the shower and turning it up higher, making the bizarre scent all the more intense inside the small stall. And before Nino knew it, Satoshi was replacing the washcloth with his mouth. He gasped in all-too-happy surprise, spreading his legs as much as he could. He'd never been rimmed in a shower before and never by a stranger who drank shitty beer. This was the sort of thing Aiba came back to the ship bragging about, some random as hell encounter. Maybe now it was Nino's turn to brag.

He cried out, hands slipping a bit against the wall as he discovered that Satoshi had one of the most talented mouths in the quadrant. As the oddly scented water rushed down Nino's back, Satoshi kissed and sucked at him, using his fingers to squeeze and fondle his ass. The kisses were replaced with the swirl of Satoshi's tongue circling him over and over, licking back and forth across his sensitive skin, so hot and wet. He refused to stay in one place, licking a stripe from Nino's hole to his balls, licking and tasting him so perfectly he was slowly forgetting his really awful day. And slowly forgetting everything else, it seemed like.

"Touch yourself," Satoshi said.

Nino did as ordered, taking his cock in hand and stroking himself hard. Before too long he was keeping a rhythm going, working his cock in time as Satoshi arched up, moving his tongue in quick little thrusts into him. All he knew was the feeling of the sickly sweet water on his back and the feeling of Satoshi's miraculous tongue as he came.

-

When he woke, the water was gone and Nino was on his back, soft sheets under him. When had he gotten here? 

He sat up, looking around in alarm. He was still on board the Freestyle. The room was completely cleared out save for the bunk and sheets he was lying on. "Ohhhh fuck no," he murmured, seeing his bundle of Gamma ale-stinking clothes balled up in the corner of the room.

He clambered out of the bunk, finding a neatly folded t-shirt, pair of jeans, and pair of boxer briefs at the end of the bed. He pulled them on quickly, rushing out of the room. Satoshi's bathroom was empty - no more pink bottles. The boxes and boxes of creepy figurines were gone. He stumbled out of the ship, hobbling across the hangar bay.

Even though he felt wonderfully rested, it didn't much matter. Because when he got to where the Sobu Line should have been, he discovered it was missing. An angry rant at the hangar bay crew and a visit to Nari later and he knew he'd been played.

Nari sniffed the air inside the Freestyle, wrinkling his nose as he drifted around the empty ship in his yukata. "You fucked this guy?"

"Close enough, especially after you gave me that stupid 'go ahead' wink," Nino complained, kicking at the bulkhead. "It was really damn good too, you'd have put out for him."

Nari grinned and went back to his sniffing. The sniffing brought him to the bathroom, and he turned on the tap in the sink. Nino hovered in the doorway, so angry he was ready to break something. Within seconds Nari shut off the faucet and turned around, his purple lipstick making his smile all the more irritating.

"Gamma gel. You fell for Gamma gel, you fucking amateur," Nari said, laughing hysterically.

"The hell is that?"

Nari came over, wrapping a protective arm around Nino's shoulder and ushering him back into what had been Satoshi's bedroom. "There are some strange planets on the other side of the wormhole in Gamma Quadrant. Strange people and strange shit they're into. I'd bet Lalapipo that your mystery man was from Gamma Quadrant."

"But what the fuck is Gamma gel?"

Nari sighed. "An aphrodisiac that comes in gel caplets, dissolved in a drink or some sort of liquid. Like, say, bath water. Depending on your genetic makeup, it'll make you extra...pliable. People from Gamma are pretty much immune to it so they've been known to come over here to find people to use it on."

"You're saying this asshole drugged me."

Nari nodded. "I'm saying this asshole drugged you."

One of the best encounters of his life, but this sleepy-eyed fuck had drugged him. One of the best encounters of his life, but now the Sobu Line was gone. One of the best encounters of his life, but now he had to find his way back to Kou-san. One of the best encounters of his life, but now Aiba would lord this over him for eternity. The only positive was that he'd avoid The Panty Sniffer.

Nino screamed in irritation.

 

**.Aiba Masaki vs. the Space Plague.**

Aiba hated going to the doctor. They poked you, scanned you. Told you not to work in dangerous career paths. He especially hated going to his family doctor on his home planet. But he was home visiting and his mother said that Dr. Johnny would be upset if he didn't stop in for a check-up. After all, it was Dr. Johnny who had gotten Aiba his job at Royale.

His last name was Kitagawa, but Dr. Johnny thought going by his first name would make him seem more caring. It just made him seem more creepy. He'd been ancient when his mother had brought Aiba to see him when he was a kid, and he was even more ancient now. He was pushing 90, still hobbling around his small practice tucked between a smoothie bar and a droid tune-up shop in the middle of their dusty desert town.

Inside the clinic he was surrounded by young and attractive male nurses, even though there didn't seem to be a need for so many of them when there were so few patients. Aiba sat uncomfortably in the waiting room, waiting for his test results. His mother had dragged him in the other day, and Dr. Johnny (who'd always loved poking with his needles) had given Aiba a blood test.

It had been almost five years ago that Dr. Johnny had returned from a holiday, a holiday spent on board the Alpha Quadrant's most notable space brothel. While there paying a special visit to the gents from Daruma IV, he had seen the job posting advertising for a jack of all trades, someone willing to do any odd job, and he'd mentioned it to Aiba. After saving up to get on board, that position became Aiba's current one, although now that he and Nino were back from The Zoo, it seemed that they were mostly just a fancy taxi service.

He tapped his feet nervously, waiting for Dr. Johnny to call him in. Finally one of the nurses called his name, and he moved into the little exam room in the rear of the clinic. It smelled like moth balls when the elderly doctor came in and shut the door. As usual, he eyed Aiba up and down, leering a bit. He was the creepiest person Aiba had ever met, and he'd met some creepy people.

"Masaki-chan, thanks for coming back. I would have called with your results, but I always prefer face-to-face meetings."

"Right."

Dr. Johnny's hands shook as he opened a medical file, looking at Aiba gravely. He had rough, wrinkly skin and thin hair that Aiba suspected was still black only because of dye or plugs. Aiba hoped Dr. Johnny's visits to Royale had stopped, if only because of how horrifying it would be to be stuck with him in an intimate situation. He licked his leathery lips and lowered his glasses.

"Masaki-chan, I regret to inform you that you have Alderaan Syndrome."

Aiba cocked his head. He felt perfectly normal. "What's that?"

And then his world turned upside down. As Dr. Johnny stumbled his way through an explanation, Aiba's usual cheer and upbeat attitude was thoroughly crushed.

Alderaan Syndrome was a disease that struck frequent space travelers, something about too many jumps through a warp gate messing with your blood vessels. In simple terms, Aiba's heart couldn't keep up with his busy lifestyle, and he had maybe two months to live. But he felt fine, perfectly honestly fine. Two months to live! Two months! 

There was still so much of the universe to see, so much life to live. Dr. Johnny patted him on the knee. It would be quick, at least. Aiba would simply have a heart attack and die one day. He didn't need to be in the hospital, didn't need any treatment. Dr. Johnny's advice was for Aiba to go on normally, to simply live his life until his heart burst.

He stumbled out of the tiny clinic, horrified and upset. His heart was a ticking time bomb in his chest, and there was nothing he could do to fix it. He couldn't bear to tell his mother. The stress of knowing what was happening to her son would give her a heart attack of her own. And he couldn't even bring himself to send Nino a message. What could he even say? I'm going to die soon?

No, Aiba resolved when he got back to his family's home. He had another day before the shuttle was going to take him back to Royale and back to work. He got out a piece of paper and a pen and started making a list. Work diligently every day, he wrote. Be nicer to Nino, even when he is being an asshole and doesn't deserve it, he wrote. He folded up his list and kept it close to his heart.

But then that night he woke up, an odd thought coming to him. He'd gone his entire thirty years of life without having a threesome. 

Sure it was probably low on the totem pole of things he ought to accomplish in his short life, but there it was. He turned on his night light and fumbled for a pen, frantically writing and turning his list of mostly normal "before I die" goals into a rather odd assortment of sexual desires to fulfill. Soon the "sex" list was twice as long as the original list.

He smiled and shut out the light. If he was going out, he was going out with a bang. Literally.

-

He made it back to Royale to discover that the Sobu Line had been stolen, and Nino was on Kou-san's shit list. After all the effort they'd made to get their FastPass back, after all the yelling Nino had done at Aiba for losing it, Nino had gone ahead and lost the entire ship this time.

But Aiba remained calm. After all, he was a dying man, and there were far worse things than losing a spaceship to a creepy alien from the Gamma Quadrant who was an incredible lay (Nari had sent a message along, letting Aiba know the true circumstances before Nino lied to him about what had happened).

Royale had lost a customer, the really tall and handsome Panty Sniffer guy, and Kou wasn't so quick to forgive that nor the loss of the Sobu Line. They still had VIP ferrying to do, and Kou was lending them a ship with an obnoxious tracking device that beeped every twenty seconds. But all their remaining hours were to be spent in indentured servitude, foregoing their pay to do odd jobs that were even beneath VIP ferrying. Kou-san had put the always busy Matsumoto Jun in charge of them until they made up for the loss of the Sobu Line.

Nino had been assigned the unfortunate task of "cold calling" about Royale at various stations throughout the Quadrant. This basically entailed him standing around and approaching people, trying to hand them business cards for Royale and drumming up business. He'd be stuck between plenty of other people touting their wares and offerings at marketplaces, and since he wasn't a sexy woman with large tits, it was going to be pretty hopeless. Matsumoto didn't seem all that concerned if Nino was a success or not, though.

Aiba was to remain on board Royale in the equally unfortunate position of assistant to the assistant, otherwise known as Matsumoto Jun's bitch boy. Though it put a damper on Aiba's goals to be sexually adventurous across the galaxy, it did provide him with the opportunity to cross one thing off of his list: fucking his boss.

Of course when he'd added it to his sheet he'd had Kou-san in mind, the thought of her on her back, legs spread, begging for Aiba to eat her out. Maybe she'd even blow him if he told her he was dying. It had been a rather detailed fantasy, but Aiba once again decided to make the best of his circumstances. Matsumoto Jun was now technically his boss too, and all Aiba had to do was seduce him before his heart exploded.

It wasn't going to be easy. Matsumoto spent the majority of his workday in that extremely unappealing waiting room, anticipating Kou-san's call every other minute. As Matsumoto's assistant, Aiba was tasked with helping him to monitor all the levels, to ensure that people paid, that guests were brought to their reserved rooms in a timely fashion. 

Aiba spent half his nights jerking off at the thought of everything he'd had to watch that day on the monitors with Matsumoto at his side. The people on level 3 in the rooms with the elaborate sex harnesses, the Zero-G room on level 4 that had taught Aiba what semen looked like floating in a room without gravity (answer: really awesome until the gravity came back on and it splatted on the floor).

His chance finally came two weeks into his stint as Matsumoto's little slave. Kou-san was off to the salt caves down planetside to "reconnect with the spiritual side of her vagina," whatever that meant. What it really meant, however, was that her rooms were free for a blessed 24 hours.

When Kou was away, Matsumoto was in charge of the entire station, and it made him grouchier than ever, snapping off orders to all the other staff underlings. Which would annoy most people and turn them off, but Aiba Masaki was a changed man. A dying man, and after two weeks' planning to sleep with him, Matsumoto Jun's negative points were suddenly becoming positive ones.

He was stressed out and he needed to release it. Surely he could do that with Aiba's help.

It was t-minus twelve hours until Kou returned, and it was fortunately a slow day aboard Royale. No clients with outrageous requests, mostly regulars who dutifully paid and got all the dick and/or pussy they were seeking. It meant they didn't have to watch the monitors as closely. Hell, they could leave the room entirely for an hour or so, Aiba figured.

But how to float the idea to a workaholic like Matsumoto?

Aiba had worn his tightest pants that day, making sure he entered and exited Matsumoto's office with his best butt wiggle. Aiba was kind of on the skinny side and suffered from flat ass, but he still noticed the twitch of Matsumoto's nose every time he sauntered around. It had been ages since Jun-kun had gotten laid, he could just tell. Kou-san was probably a demanding mistress, and there was no doubt that Jun was called upon to please her on the regular (he had a set of lips on him that Aiba would have considered illegal), but from Matsumoto's constant temper and frowning faces, there was no way she was reciprocating.

Matsumoto was staring at one of his monitors looking glum, munching mournfully on one of his usual protein bars. Without Kou-san around to make him drape himself in faux fur or wispy fabric, he was instead in a tight-fitting shirt that showed off the broadness of his shoulders, his muscled biceps, his comparatively narrow waist. He was wearing some rather ugly jeans, but Aiba would soon see them gone.

He waited for Matsumoto's focus on the screen to glaze over a bit, mid-bite, before he walked over to the door quietly and typed in the lock passcode. Since Jun-kun was probably watching the double-thick dick level, Aiba doubted he'd notice they were locked in together until it was already too late.

Aiba made sure to lick his lips and tousle his hair a bit as he moved to the desk, leaning against it to stare Jun down.

"All clear?" Aiba asked, making his voice as husky as he could. The Zebra Queen had taught him the wonders of the human voice brought low and demanding.

Jun looked up, crumbs of his protein bar dribbling down his chin. "Yeah, looks like everyone's behaving."

Aiba tried for his sexiest glance, batting his eyelashes. "Perhaps we could...misbehave."

Jun raised an eyebrow. "Huh?"

Shit, that didn't work. Aiba cleared his throat, leaving the desk to circle around and lean against the back of Jun's chair. "I'm good at massages. You seem stressed all the time. When's the last time you had one?"

Jun jerked in the chair as Aiba brought his hands down, massaging his shoulders. "Get off me, what the hell are you doing?"

He tightened his grip, finding nothing but knotted, tight muscle. Jun was in desperate need of a long vacation, much less a good fuck. "Just watch the screen and relax."

Jun set the empty protein bar wrapper on the desk and sighed. But it seemed that Aiba's fingers were already working their magic on his shoulders because he didn't protest again, his focus remaining on the screen before him.

It was kind of frightening, if Aiba had to offer an opinion. The human body was an amazing thing. Somehow, evolution on Daruma IV had granted the men there penises of startling size. And yet somehow with a bit of lubricant, a human body could be taught to take one of them in, inch by inch. Aiba almost lost focus on his massage seduction, mouth dropping open as one of the Daruma men penetrated a female client from behind, the woman's eyes nearly bulging from her head at the obviously amazing sensation.

He looked down, could see Jun's hands fumbling in his lap a bit. He was clearly turned on by what he was watching, and now that Aiba was touching him, it was for once more than a voyeuristic experience. Aiba slowly worked the kinks out of Jun's shoulders and neck, feeling the man turn to putty beneath him while the two of them remained transfixed by the sex act they were watching. 

Eventually the woman moved, and the Daruma prostitute turned over onto his back. As the woman climbed on top of him, slowly impaling herself on the massive cock, Aiba heard Jun moan quietly, leaning into Aiba's touch for the first time.

"Hey Jun-kun," Aiba whispered, leaning down to brush his lips against the other man's ear. "Let's go in Kou-san's room. Just for a minute, how about it?"

For the first time, Matsumoto didn't immediately shoot him down. "We shouldn't. She'd know..."

"But you're the best around here, right? You can have her room cleaned, she'd never know we were in there." Aiba slid his fingers up, stroking along Jun's jaw. When he wasn't cranky, he was really damn hot.

Jun's eyes were still on the screen in front of him. "I _am_ the best..." 

Aiba groaned when Jun turned his head, two of Aiba's fingers slipping into his mouth. He sucked long and hard on them, making Aiba's cock all the more eager to have some fun. So long as his heart didn't explode. Damn Alderaan Syndrome.

All it took was Aiba's other hand sneaking onto the desk, pressing the "Unmute" button on the control panel and all of a sudden the entire office was flooded with the sounds of people fucking. Women on women, men on men, and every combination in between. A deluge of people begging for it or being begged, the cries and moans of dozens of people in ecstasy. No wonder Jun watched this shit on mute. The full experience was too much.

"Ah, gods damn it," Jun mumbled, staggering to his feet. He moved over to the wall, entering the code to unlock Kou's boudoir. The sounds from the monitors followed them, as it seemed Kou's rooms had their own uplinks to all the feeds throughout the station.

Jun reached for him, crushing their mouths together, and Aiba learned just how dangerous those lips were. And yet Jun was very yielding, opening his mouth to let Aiba's tongue venture inside. He moaned as Aiba tore at his t-shirt, pushing it up to twist one of his nipples between his fingers. Jun had been so submissive to Kou for so long that it seemed he had no wish to take control of the situation. Which was of course fine by Aiba.

Kou's boudoir smelled like her usual orchids, a heady scent that upon mingling with the grunting and groaning from the crazy sex feeds made Aiba fully hard. He and Jun made short work of their clothes, and Aiba enjoyed the view as Jun crawled naked on his hands and knees across Kou's bed to find a bottle of lube and a prophylactic spray in her bedside table. Aiba lamented for poor Jun when he discovered the spray hadn't even been opened, that Jun had never been asked to use it.

"I shouldn't be in here without her," Jun was whining a bit, lying on his back and looking nervous. "She's going to fire me."

"Nah, she won't fire you. You're the only person who consistently does his job well. Look at me and Nino right? We're terrible."

Jun considered that for a moment, stretching out along the purple silken sheets. "You both _are_ really awful."

But before Aiba allowed Jun to dwell on those true, blunt feelings of his, he joined him on the bed, crawling over to him. He lay atop him, feeling their hard cocks rub together as Aiba nibbled at Jun's collarbone. He was so sensitive and nervous, not used to being the center of attention. Aiba was really pleased with his "conquer Jun" strategy, thrilled with every roll of Jun's hips as their bodies lie flush against each other.

He grabbed hold of Jun's hand. "I want to watch you jerk off."

Jun did as requested, biting that plump bottom lip of his as he took hold of his hard cock and started pumping it like he probably hadn't done in the company of another person in some time. Aiba let Jun work himself, taking his time elsewhere. He spread Jun wide, hearing Jun's firm approval as he slipped a lubed finger inside him, working him open.

"What would you like me to do, Jun-kun? What would you like me to do that Kou-san won't do?"

"Fuck me," Jun answered, one hand working his cock while the other covered his eyes, as though he was blocking out the reality of what he was doing in his boss' bed. "Please fuck me."

He never thought he'd see this pain in the ass person beg to be fucked, but Aiba was thrilled to see this whole other side of Jun. He had to take advantage of it now - in a few hours he'd be panicked and irritating again, preparing for Kou's return. Aiba slowly inserted another finger into Jun's tight hole, hearing the man gasp. He was probably going to come soon.

"Let me know when you're ready."

But Jun could only let out a sigh, so far along and so close to coming that he wasn't much in the mood for chatting. Aiba quickened the pace of his fingers, trying to keep in time with the movement of Jun's hand on his cock. Jun came soon after, messily coating his abdomen with his release. Aiba took that as his own cue, hearing Jun moan at the sound of the spray can opening.

Once Aiba was ready to go, coating his erection with more lube, he pressed forward, kneeling and pushing Jun's legs until his knees were almost touching his chest. He was remarkably flexible, something Kou-san ought to take advantage of one of these days. He slowly pushed inside, swallowing Jun's groan with his mouth, kissing him hard.

Aiba knew he should make it count, make it last, but Jun was kissing back, rocking up against him and trying to take him deeper. With every thrust, Jun was desperately needy, begging for more and more. Aiba worried he was going too hard, going too fast but Jun was still kissing him, panting, making these hot little grunts he couldn't resist. When he came, he felt so good he wouldn't mind dying just like this, buried to the hilt inside the man beneath him.

Of course that would probably be horrifying for Jun, having someone die on top of him in the middle of his boss' bed.

They detangled, Jun moving off to get them cleaned up. When he returned, Aiba was lying back on the sheets, moving his arms and legs back and forth, relishing the soft fabric. He'd never slept on sheets like this before, and Jun sighed.

"Get off of there."

"Five more minutes," Aiba complained, fingers grasping at the silk. "Come on, Jun-kun, I doubt she lets you enjoy it."

Jun considered this for a moment before joining him, lying at his side. "You're right. She doesn't."

They lay in a blissful silence, breathing in and out as the sounds of people getting pounded elsewhere in the station piped in through the speakers.

"I'm dying," Aiba admitted.

"What?"

He blinked a few times. Matsumoto Jun didn't need another stressful thing in his life, having to post job ads for Aiba's eventual replacement. He could deal with that when it happened. He rubbed his eyes, yawning. "I meant, uh, that I've been dying to fuck you."

"Oh," Jun said, trying to sound indifferent, but Aiba didn't have to turn his head to know that Jun was blushing.

 

**.Mars Power, Make-Up!.**

It had been a full month of this shit, a month without the Sobu Line. He hated the clunky fuel guzzler of a ship that Kou-san was making him and Aiba use for transport purposes now. He knew the Sobu Line's controls better than he knew his own body. The new ship, the Galileo, had been Kou's last personal ship before she'd upgraded to her new one, the Galileo II. It was a massive thing, with extra cargo compartments and passenger accommodations for 10, even though Nino and Aiba were usually only moving one person at a time.

He and Aiba docked the Galileo at the Pretty Guardian Casino and Convention Station. They were transporting a famous husband and wife, Matsuyama Kenichi and Koyuki. They were regular patrons of the Cherry on Top, having made millions on their sensational Sex Yoga for Couples vids on the Net. Nino's personal favorite, of course, was the Upward-Facing Doggie Style vid. 

But upon arrival there was a message waiting for them from the Matsuyamas: they were staying on Pretty Guardian for an extra day due to the 432nd Annual Alpha Quadrant Yoga Convention. Even as he and Aiba disembarked from the Galileo, the hangar bay was swamped with people carrying yoga mats. And unfortunately for Nino, Royale Tout Number One, a client delay meant he had hours free and was required to try and snag more as part of his indentured servitude.

Aiba left him as fast as his feet could carry him. His partner had been acting so strange lately. He looked like he was constantly run ragged and he always returned to their bunks on board Royale stinking of sex. Much more than usual. For his own part, Nino had taken a vow of temporary celibacy after the incident with that asshole Satoshi. If Nino wanted to focus on getting the Sobu Line back, he couldn't let the pleasures of the flesh distract him.

He gathered up his cards for Royale, the extra special ones with the vid screens embedded into the card stock. They provided an overview of the station and its various services. Nino hadn't gotten too many customers interested in the past few weeks. Soliciting was illegal on most space stations outside of trade market zones, which meant that Nino had to linger in those chaotic spaces. On most stations he found himself advertising kinky sex while some old granny selling vegetables in the stall beside him wiggled a daikon at him suggestively.

Pretty Guardian was one of those kinds of places. The Luna Marketplace mid-station was a flurry of activity as always, and Nino greeted his bored-looking friend Tadayoshi, the security guard at the entrance. "I need a solicitor pass for the day, Tada," Nino explained, showing his friend the cards.

Tadayoshi was tall and lazy, and Nino knew the only reason he still had a job here was because he was sleeping with someone in upper management. Pretty Guardian was under the control of five wealthy women, each with their own area of responsibility. One oversaw the marketplace, another the casino, another the convention center, and the other two whatever else needed attending on such a massive structure like Pretty Guardian.

Nino mostly steered clear of management since he'd once run afoul of Ayaka-san, the sadistic woman who ran the casino. Nino hadn't counted cards here in ages for fear of the cheerful woman shutting him up in another human-sized roulette ball and making him lose his lunch on the giant wheel again.

Tada sighed as though the process of handing Nino a pass was a difficult task indeed. He mumbled to himself, stamping the card and handing it over. "Second shift ends in three hours. You have to come back here if you want to do third shift."

Nino scowled. "Why don't you just give me two stamps on here?"

Tada rolled his eyes in reply. 

Nino harrumphed, hanging the pass around his neck with the lanyard Tada limply held out to him. He was lucky to get in at all. Most of the booths were full as usual, meaning Nino wasn't likely to find one open even with the second shift mostly over already. He found himself a place to stand at the end of one of the massive aisles, thankfully next to a deaf-looking elderly man's booth. The old guy was sleeping while his futon-fluffer droids sat there rusting out as the minutes ticked by. Who the hell needed a droid that could only fluff your futon?

He tried his best selling points, shouting to the passing crowds about Royale's discreet nature, its commitment to safe sex. But the crowds kept walking past. It wasn't until he finally started shouting about the "Daruma dicks" that he got a bite.

A woman in a pink dress and a diamond tiara approached, pretty with curled dark hair and a rather serious face. Trailing her was an attractive man in glasses wearing a tuxedo, equally serious. Nino had always been sharp, and he saw the matching diamond tiara crest on the tuxedo jacket. The woman was one of the owners of Pretty Guardian, walking the marketplace with an aura of wealth and privilege.

She eyed his pass suspiciously, holding out her hand for one of the Royale cards. Nino dutifully held it out, but it was the man in the tuxedo who actually took it, holding it for the woman to watch. The man pressed the play button on the card, and together they watched the three minute advertisement in silence. When it was over, the woman simply nodded and Tuxedo Guy slipped the card into his jacket.

The woman smirked at him. "You work there?"

"Yes," Nino said quickly, a little frightened by the woman and her cold expression.

"Can we get a free trial?"

Nino then realized his mistake. Yes, it was true that he worked at Royale, but he didn't exactly "work" there. But this woman was way high up in the Pretty Guardian command structure, and if he said no to her, he'd never get to solicit on the station again. And he didn't want to know how Matsumoto would react to that. Tuxedo Guy was eyeing him now too, pushing his glasses up his nose.

"Traditionally Royale does not offer freebies, uh, and um, we keep everything in-house so you normally have to come visit..." he stumbled out, seeing the woman's expression quickly turn into a frown. "But given your, uh, your position here, I doubt you have the time to gallivant across the quadrant, so..."

"My lady, I'm fairly certain he's not from Daruma himself," Tuxedo Guy said.

" _That's_ what you're looking for?" Nino blurted out, seeing others in the crowd turn around and stare. 

This infuriated the woman all the more and she stepped up, grabbing hold of Nino's shirt with a well-manicured hand and pulling him close. "Would you keep it down, rent boy?"

"I'm not a rent boy, ma'am," Nino said. He was temporarily celibate. Except for the feelings now making themselves known below the waist at the woman's rough handling of him. She didn't seem the type who wasted time drugging her paramours. She got what she wanted when she wanted it, and if Nino couldn't deliver she'd find someone else who would. "And the gentleman is correct, I'm not from Daruma IV."

She released him, turning to walk away, and for some reason he already missed her suspicious expression, the forcefulness of her speech.

"But I...I've got a lot to offer."

Tuxedo Guy rolled his eyes, but the woman was back, hands on her hips. She looked around, waiting for people to stop paying attention to them. Then she circled Nino like a vulture, prodding at his chest, at his ass, and his chin before revealing a smile full of rather large teeth. "Sakurai-san," she mumbled to the guy in the tuxedo. "Please provide this man with my contact information."

With that the woman walked away for good. Sakurai-san did as ordered, bowing politely to Nino before handing him a business card. "When second shift is over," Sakurai said, eyebrow raised. "Please report here. You are free of disease? No space-transmitted infections?"

"Clean as a whistle," Nino replied, taking the card with shaking fingers.

"Sakurai-san, I want this droid for my futon!" the woman was complaining now, gesturing at the old man's booth beside them.

"See you later," Sakurai grumbled, following his demanding lady.

Nino took a glimpse at the card: **Kitagawa Keiko, Manager** \- _Pretty Guardian Convention Center. Office 86, Convention Level._

Well, this was going to be interesting.


	4. Chapter 4

Sakurai-san opened the door to office 86 a few hours later, still eyeing Nino with suspicion. It was a sumptuous office with a large glass window offering a fine view of the stars. Keiko-san's other walls were full of bookshelves. The woman herself was perched on her massive oak desk, legs crossed while she paged through an account ledger on her lap.

The room's other adornments included a handful of plants, a tan sofa, and a framed photo of Kitagawa and four other women (presumably the other Pretty Guardian managers) standing with the Emperor. This was a powerful woman, perhaps even more powerful than Kou-san. And now Nino was offering her whatever type of "free trial" she was looking for.

"Good, you're here," Keiko said, uncrossing her legs and setting the ledger aside. "We've seen you in Luna advertising before, and I've heard my share of things about Royale both good and bad. I'd go to The Zoo to satiate myself, but I am not the type of girl to put myself on display. Should you please me today, I may consider a visit to your station."

"I'll do my best, my lady," Nino said, catching a nod from Sakurai-san that it was the correct way to address her.

"Don't get me wrong," Keiko-san said, looking to Sakurai with shimmering eyes. "Sakurai-san is usually more than enough to keep me happy. But sometimes a girl needs more than one man at a time, don't you think so?"

Ah, now Nino had figured out why Sakurai had been giving him the stink face from the moment Keiko-san had approached him. The guy was jealous, upset with himself that he couldn't give his mistress all that she required.

"Sakurai-san, my accessories," Keiko announced sharply, and Sakurai sprung into action. 

Nino stood aside, waiting nervously while Keiko hopped off the desk. He shifted from foot to foot, feeling slightly out of place as Sakurai removed the tiara from Keiko's hair, gently removed her earrings and jewels, and then pressed a kiss to her shoulder before unzipping the back of her pink dress and leaving her standing there in only her red lace panties and high heels.

She was thin with small, perky breasts, a tiny waist, and long, shapely legs. What she lacked in voluptuousness she easily made up for with those eyes, the way she watched Nino and licked her lips as Sakurai busied himself with gently placing her dress on a hanger and perching it on one of the bookcases.

"What's your name?" she finally asked him. 

"Nino is fine."

She nodded, smiling at him while Sakurai-san removed his tuxedo jacket, draping it over the back of Keiko's chair. "Very good, Nino. Now you watch while Sakurai-san touches me."

Still clad in his white dress shirt, waistcoat, bowtie, and slacks, Sakurai moved around the desk to approach Keiko from behind. Nino inhaled sharply as the man moved Keiko's hair aside, pressing his rather plump, gorgeous lips against the back of her neck.

Sakurai's gentleness turned suddenly rough in an instant. Keiko kept smiling, gasping slightly when Sakurai pulled her back against him, one hand coming around to squeeze her breast while the other slipped inside her panties. Nino didn't know if he was supposed to sit down and wait or remain in place, so he opted for remaining in place. They were both watching him, Sakurai's sharp, jealous eyes full of arrogance behind his thin wire frames as his fingers roughly rubbed against his mistress. Keiko was clearly enjoying herself and grinning, smiling at Nino and at Sakurai's rough handling.

"I'd like to be kissed now," Keiko said quietly, and Sakurai obeyed, his hand moving up from her breast to tilt her face, kissing first along her cheek before capturing her mouth. Her fingers slipped low, covering Sakurai's hand where it moved within her panties, urging him along.

They went at it a little longer than Nino thought was necessary given that he was in the room watching, growing uncomfortably hot as she bucked herself against Sakurai's hand, moaning against his mouth. Finally she broke away from her lover, servant, whatever Sakurai was to her, wiping at a bit of saliva on her lips.

"Desk now. Get me ready. Nino, you can help with this."

Sakurai's hand slipped from her panties, and he turned her around with a swift sort of precision that even impressed Nino. He found himself wondering if Sakurai had gone to some school to learn what he did. Sakurai cleared off the desk, knocking photo frames, a jar of pencils, and other papers to the floor, clearing a space for his lady. He lifted her into place easily, pushing her onto her back so she was leaning on her elbows. He then rolled up his shirt sleeves and snapped his fingers for Nino.

He hurried over to the desk, unsure of what he was supposed to do. Sakurai was sliding Keiko's panties down her long legs, maneuvering them off and around her black heels. He tossed them aside and snapped his fingers again, pointing at the woman's chest. 

"Ah, okay," Nino said, getting the sinking suspicion both people in the room could snap their fingers and have him killed just as easily. "I got it, I got it."

Sakurai neatly removed his glasses, setting them down on one of the bookshelves as he tugged open one of Keiko's desk drawers. Nino was of course required elsewhere, and Keiko moaned in approval as he moved to the side of her desk, leaning forward to lick teasingly at her nipples. He couldn't help keeping his head sideways, eventually seeing Sakurai roughly push Keiko's legs open to start lapping at her clit with his tongue.

One of Keiko's hands found Nino's head, her sharp fingernails scratching at his scalp. Nino tried to make himself useful, running his fingers along Keiko's abdomen as he suckled her. She was soon crying out from whatever wonders Sakurai's mouth was doing down below, screaming her approval, screaming for someone named Sho. Nino imagined that was Sakurai-san's first name, something saved only for the moments when he pleased her the most. 

Mere seconds later Nino heard the squeeze of a bottle, looking over to see Sakurai coating his fingers with lube, most likely getting his mistress ready for a two-man show. Nino was getting harder the longer this went on, circling Keiko's nipple with his tongue while he listened to the slick sounds of Sakurai's fingers driving into her. He was efficient in his work, and Nino listened to Keiko's pleased little grunts as Sakurai's palm thumped against her ass as he slid his fingers inside her.

"I'm ready," Keiko was breathlessly moaning minutes later. "Gods, I'm ready."

Nino grumbled in pain as Sakurai flung a bottle of spray at him, the thing hitting him hard in the leg. He tore himself reluctantly away from Keiko's breasts, straightening up and picking the bottle up from the floor. Keiko started to twist her own nipples between her fingers, her hips rocking as Sakurai expertly penetrated her ass with two fingers, his mouth returning to lick aggressively at her clit.

Nino stripped down, hoping that his own erection would be enough given that he really wasn't from Daruma IV. It was difficult to look away from Keiko's happy writhing on top of her desk. "Couch, Nino," came Keiko's moaned order.

He moved over to the tan sofa, stroking himself a few times before giving the bottle a shake and spraying on his coat of protection. It was risky and rather mean-spirited, but he flung the bottle back in Sakurai's direction, beaning him in the ass with it.

Sakurai turned around to scowl at him, picking up the bottle with a gruff little growl that was hotter than it should have been. He held out his hand for his lady, helping Keiko to sit up, and he led her over to the couch.

"Stay right where you are," Keiko ordered Nino, finally slipping out of her shoes and climbing onto the couch, settling herself on top of him with a knee on either side of him. Suddenly she was close, so close he could smell her perfume, the fragrance of her shampoo as her hair fell all around him. He received no warnings or punishments when he lifted his arms to wrap them around her. She buried her small face against his neck, kissing him with her hot little mouth.

She was dripping wet, ready for both of them. He groaned as the head of his cock slipped inside her, letting her rock back against him. "Very nice," she whispered against his skin, and he sighed in contentment, suddenly very grateful he'd given up on his mission of celibacy.

Nino enjoyed a full blissful minute with her on top of him, feeling her so wet and warm as she bounced playfully against him. But he looked over, seeing that Sakurai had put his glasses back on but had taken off the rest of his clothes. Perhaps Keiko preferred the glasses on him for aesthetic purposes. Nino felt a little embarrassed about his soft belly, seeing the firm muscles and well-defined abs Sakurai had been hiding under that tuxedo. But he was pleased to discover Sakurai didn't have a monstrous cock so at least they were on an even playing field there.

Nino thrusted up into Keiko a few more times as Sakurai grabbed the bottle of lubricant from the desk and came over to the couch. He slowed his movements, shutting his eyes when Keiko kissed him almost sweetly. Most likely because she knew she was about to get what she really, truly wanted.

Sakurai finally got onto the couch, positioning himself with with one leg between Nino's and the other between Nino's leg and the couch cushion. Nino stopped moving, letting Keiko slowly move back and forth atop him while Sakurai got himself into place. Keiko moved, bracing herself, and Nino's view changed to the sight of Keiko's bouncing breasts as her curtain of hair fell around him. He licked his lips, doing his best to keep from slipping out of her as Sakurai's fingers found her ass again.

The sound of complete and total happiness Keiko made when Sakurai's cock started pushing into her was one Nino wouldn't forget for some time. It was a low, eager moan, and Nino could only imagine how good it must have felt. She started to move, slowly at first, but when Nino tilted his face up, letting his tongue graze against her breasts and nipples as she moved, she gasped. Nino could feel the whole couch groaning with their combined weight, and he could sense Sakurai's movements within her too.

Keiko, who seemed so business-like and prissy in the marketplace, was loud and appreciative behind closed doors. "Yeah, more," she was begging the both of them. "More." Sensing that she was as comfortable as she was going to get in such a position, he started to move again, his thigh brushing a bit against Sakurai's leg as he rolled his hips, thrusting into her repeatedly and feeling her squeeze him tight as Sakurai filled her ass with his own cock. 

She could barely keep herself up, her arm moving to wrap around Nino's neck, clinging to him and gasping, her other hand slipping a bit awkwardly between them. He was almost deafened by her shout then as she rubbed her fingers hastily against her clit, bringing herself off in mere seconds. Now he was mostly competing with Sakurai, who kept pumping into her as her whole body shook with her orgasm. 

Keiko seemed on another plane of existence, words having clearly deserted her. All she was doing was gasping now, shuddering with the effort of holding herself up as her fingers continued relentlessly against her clit. Nino groaned at the sudden low moan that emerged from Sakurai, feeling the whole couch move in his last ditch efforts to please his mistress before he came. Keiko sighed in contentment, humming as Sakurai slowly, gently withdrew from her body. 

That left Nino for last, and he felt rather pleased with himself for lasting longer than Sakurai. He felt a weight lift as Sakurai left the sofa, giving Nino all the room he needed to show off and earn Royale some future business from Kitagawa Keiko. He knew it wouldn't be much longer now, and he grinned as he greedily put his hands on her ass and squeezed. She chuckled softly, sitting up and bracing her hands on his chest. She gave him a wink that would have made Sakurai-san fume if he saw it. He realized that she wasn't scary now. She just knew what she wanted, and he'd be sad to leave her. 

From there she rode him hard and fast, smiling even as he came, arching up and into her until he was completely out of it. He lay there, satisfied, not even rolling his eyes as she climbed off him and headed straight for Sakurai, who'd gone to sit in her chair and sulk until they'd finished. She ruffled his hair affectionately, pressing a kiss to the man's sweaty, pretty face.

"Nino was just at a better angle," she murmured. "You felt so good, the both of you."

Sakurai still looked disappointed in himself, allowing her to kiss him once again before he got up. "I'll fetch some towels," he mumbled before heading through another door beyond Keiko's office. 

Keiko came back over to the couch with slow steps after their rather rough handling of her, chuckling to herself and obviously feeling no shame about walking around naked in front of a stranger. "I may have to pay you a visit at Royale the next time I get a craving for something like that."

Nino laughed. "I wonder if I'd get commission then."

She gave him a little tap on the nose with her finger. "Now that's the sound of a good businessman."

 

**.Interlude: Satoko.**

Aiba Masaki was tired. He probably only had weeks to live, and he'd barely made a dent in his "people to do before I die list." He'd been able to check off 'boss' thanks to his time with Jun. And then a subsequent time with Jun had allowed him to accomplish 'blowjob in the turbolift at Royale' although Aiba would have preferred to be on the receiving end for once.

Even if he had already hit more than 20 checkmarks on the list, it still left so many things, and he was already getting worn out from his existing achievements. For a dying man, he was doing pretty damn good, but he wanted to do so much more. But would his body hold out long enough?

At least being docked at Pretty Guardian usually lent itself to some sort of mischief. Of course the last time he'd been on the station had been that unfortunate situation with Daigo-san. Aiba was happy to know he was still touring in the Beta Quadrant and would be doing so indefinitely to make up for all the credits Aiba and Nino had snatched away from him.

There were still hours before they were due to transport the Matsuyamas to Royale. He supposed that 'zero gravity sex' wasn't a possibility here, nor was 'fuck a head of state and/or planetary governor.' He wandered Pretty Guardian's casino level, eyeing the folks sitting in front of the slot and pachinko machines or at the baccarat tables. Maybe he could at least find someone who met one of his physical description requirements. He still had 'little person' on his list, having decided that 'midget' was inappropriate terminology. There was also 'big person,' which he could fulfill in a number of ways if push came to shove.

But after hours of listening to the machines pinging noisily and patrons cheering at various tables, he slunk his way over to the large keno room at the middle of the level. Unlike the rest of the casino floor, blessed with stunning views of the stars, the keno room was notorious for its darkness and privacy. Here was where people went to conduct shady business. Here was where you met someone for a good time.

It was closed off with a single red velvet curtain, and a friendly woman stood outside beckoning for gamblers to enter. You could do whatever you wanted, but you had to buy a card to enter, and they weren't cheap. Aiba was a betting man, and he hoped the keno room could deliver today.

The woman outside, Mikako-chan, raised an eyebrow at the sight of him as he approached. She was usually smiling and cheerful to most gamblers, but she'd always been able to tell when someone was coming in for a different sort of score. And she'd always been able to read Aiba like a book.

"Aiba-san," she said politely, inclining her head. "How are you doing today?"

I'm dying, he could have told her. "Waiting for passengers," he replied, slipping his hand in his pocket to pull out a handful of credits. He glanced up at the entry fee sign posted beside the curtain. 500 credit buy-in for one card. One card!

"The Pretty Guardian Keno Room is always thrilled by your patronage," Mikako said, her little black ponytail bouncing as she pulled the curtain back. "Pervert."

He chuckled as she allowed him through anyway. He knew that Mikako served as both hostess and cleaning coordinator for the room. Aiba didn't envy her that. Some people were rather inconsiderate.

He nearly tumbled into someone else as he entered, a gruff looking businessman heading out with his briefcase. There was very little light in the place. There was the buy-in booth where you slipped your credits into a machine and it spat out your card, your twenty numbers out of eighty you hoped would get chosen. There was a tiny light next to the credit slot. And then there was the number bank, the set of screens visible from anywhere in a room that lit up in a dark orange to call the numbers. If you won any of the keno rounds, you left to claim your credits elsewhere in the casino. Most likely because nobody actually wanted to sit on duty in the room and overhear something they didn't want to, whether criminal or carnal.

Aiba fed his coins into the machine, sighing. He'd have had better luck with pachinko, but he had needs as a dying man that sitting in front of a pachinko machine couldn't fulfill. The machine pushed out his card with his numbers noted, and he took one of the small little markers from a cup on top of the machine to hopefully mark off some winners.

From the entryway, the rest of the room was cloaked in shadow. Three levels of booths sunk down into the floor, each of them with a curtain that could be drawn if necessary for privacy. Of course the people playing the round for real left them open so they could see the number banks, but as Aiba followed the dim emergency lights down to the middle row of booths, he saw that more than half had curtains drawn.

He could smell cigarette smoke and hear hushed tones coming from some of them. Business deals, illegal activity. And then from others he could hear laughter, moaning. The oh so obviously faked orgasm noises of Pretty Guardian's best cabaret girls. It reminded Aiba how fortunate he was to have access to Royale. Most people couldn't afford it and settled for the hush of a keno room.

At the end of the second aisle he found an empty booth, settling down inside against the dark leather cushion. The number bank lit up before him announced that the game on his card, Game 41378, would be starting in ten minutes while Game 41377 was already in progress. He glanced down at his numbers and rolled his eyes, setting the card down beside him.

He went with the usual protocol, sliding the heavy black curtain halfway shut, an open invitation. He'd already decided as soon as he bought his card. He had 'complete and total stranger' on his list, and it was time to check it off.

He watched the clock tick down on the number bank. Seven minutes until his game, then six. And then finally there was movement in the aisle, and a head poked around the side of his curtain. "Need some company?"

In the glow of the number bank he could see it was a slender, short woman with long, curled light hair. She had a round, childish face and was dressed in a long coat and knee-high boots. The only odd thing about her was the giant handbag she was toting around. It looked like it weighed as much as she did.

But that was neither here nor there. He merely held out his hand, beckoning her forward with his finger. She politely slid the curtain closed after her and set her massive bag down with a thunk on the floor of the enclosure. Aiba heard something fall out of the thing and brush against his shoe.

He bent down, retrieving it. The woman pulled out a pocket light from her coat, turning it on. "Ah, I'm sorry to have dropped that, man."

He took his first good look at her as she set the pocket light down on the cushion between them, leaving it on. A deeper voice for a woman and Aiba would have described her face as boyish even with all the makeup she was wearing. But she unbuttoned her coat, revealing breasts with a bounce Aiba knew meant they were real. She held out her hand, gesturing for the item that had fallen from her bag.

It was one of the strangest things he'd ever seen, a tiny little carved figurine with massive features - big expressive eyes, a large nose, huge teeth. It was mostly head with a tiny body. He handed it over to her and she slipped it back in her handbag. Aiba noticed that the bag was full of the odd figurines. "I sell these," she explained. "Well, I make them too. Girl's gotta eat. It's hard out here for an artist, you know?"

"Right," Aiba said with a nod, hoping this wasn't just a sales pitch. He'd already blown 500 credits on the card for the keno game he was going to be missing.

"I'm Satoko," she said by way of introduction.

"Masaki."

"It's nice to meet you, Masaki," she said, and Aiba almost believed her. "How long you here for?"

He held up his keno card. "One round in here. Another day at the station altogether though. You?"

She tugged a vendor's lanyard from around her neck, shoving it into her bag. "On my way in a few hours. Nobody in Luna was biting today. I swear, man, you spend hours and hours pouring your whole life into your art and what does it get you?"

He thought the way she spoke was a little odd, but maybe she wasn't local. Maybe Gamma or even Delta? He wondered if he could also check off 'foreigner' on his to do list. "Well, we have to do what we can with the time we're given."

She laid a hand on his shoulder. "That was, like, really profound, Masaki." He felt cheered by her presence. She was rather laid-back and friendly, and he liked her immediately. She pulled a water bottle from her bag and uncapped it, taking a long sip before holding it out. "Thirsty?"

He gratefully accepted. They both knew where this was going. He could tell from the twinkle in her eyes as he rudely downed the rest of the bottle. It was good to be hydrated in advance. It tasted a little funny, but maybe it had just been in her bag a while.

"Why don't you unzip your pants? I'll take care of you." 

Aiba didn't need to be told twice, obeying her immediately. He sighed when Satoko's small, but kind of rough little hand pulled him out from his boxers and started pumping his cock. The friction was kind of nice, almost like a guy's hand, but her nails were painted and she smelled distinctly feminine.

It wasn't long before he was hard, trying not to lift his hips and buck himself against her hand. He didn't need it to be over that quickly. He heard her body move against the cushions, felt the warmth of her breath against his face. She placed cute little kisses against his ear, against his neck, humming quietly as she worked him with her expert hand.

"It's been a rough day," she mumbled against his skin. "Do you think we could do something a little more...?"

"I...I don't have any..."

"Not to worry," Satoko whispered, licking him along his jaw. "I said I'd take care of you."

And so she did. Aiba's eyes grew heavy, and he struggled to keep them open even as she stripped out of her coat and pulled a bottle of spray from her handbag. She made quick work of it, coating his erection swiftly before hoisting up her short black skirt to reveal her lack of panties. Whatever sense was still left in Aiba's head packed its bags and headed south at the sight of her firm ass and the cleft between her legs.

She left her boots on, placing a kiss on his nose before pushing him back against the cushion and confidently turning her back on him. She unbuttoned her blouse and slid it from her shoulders, tossing it aside with her coat. Positioning herself with one booted leg on either side of his, she slowly sank down on his cock, chuckling a bit merrily when their bodies were fully together. Or maybe he was hearing things.

He now had a limited view of the curtain of her hair, instead opting to look down. He put one hand to either side of her, keeping her steady while she began to rock herself back and forth. Underneath that big coat she'd been hiding a rather expert pair of hips. He couldn't look away from the hypnotic rolling motion, hearing her gasps of delight as she rode him.

Aiba heard the soft pinging noise signaling the start of the next keno round. Just as he turned to look for his card, Satoko slipped off his dick, moving to slide the curtain open just enough to view the board. Before he could even protest or yell for her to pull it shut again, she was snatching up the card from the cushion and settling herself right back down on his hard cock.

"I'll check your numbers while you fuck me, okay?"

They were almost entirely exposed, this strange woman with her bag full of bizarre figurines bouncing on his cock while he moved his head aside and tried to keep her long curls from getting in his mouth. He had to admit that the potential for being caught was making him feel even better. He was really surprised by how into it he was, given that they'd only met minutes earlier, but he felt like he was entering some sort of sexual trance, watching her move as the orange numbers popped up on the board.

"Oooh, twelve. They just called twelve," Satoko announced. "You're so good!"

Aiba didn't know if she was referring to his keno numbers or his cock, but he was growing so hypnotized with the feeling of being inside her that he decided to switch things up. "You watch the numbers, alright?" he said, and she agreed with a quiet little nod.

He adjusted them, pulling her back against him. Her head settled just beside his, and now he could see her breasts. Instead of having her ride him, he rocked his own hips, hearing her gasp as he quickly pounded into her. The keno numbers started to blur. Everything was growing fuzzy. All he knew was the intensity of feeling Satoko was eliciting from him. It didn't matter that they were strangers. It didn't matter that anyone, even poor Mikako-chan, might walk by.

Maybe he was close to death this time. Maybe this was his last hurrah.

"Oooh, Masaki, they just called 64!"

He thrust up and into her faster and faster, watching her tits bounce. He wanted her, he wanted her so badly. She cried out, much louder than the keno room really allowed for when he slid his hand south and started to rub her clit in time with his movements.

She was still calling out numbers when he came, collapsing against the cushions and hoping his heart would hold out. She didn't move, watching the board and pushing his fingers aside so she could touch herself. Even as she came, just as noisily, she still seemed way more coherent than him. He felt as though he could fall asleep right there. Nino would be totally mad if he couldn't find him later...

He barely registered her moving out of his lap, the odd touch of her handkerchief as she mopped his brow. "I'm sorry," she whispered, but maybe he misheard her.

-

When he woke, Satoko and her bag full of creepy figurines were gone, and Aiba felt very well-rested. He was still there with his pants unbuttoned and his limp cock hanging out, but at least Satoko had disposed of his condom. She'd even left one of her ugly figurines behind as a farewell gift, the hideous thing left right at his side on the booth cushion. But, he discovered, growing more and more awake and alert by the second, his keno card was gone.

He hurriedly buttoned up his pants, grabbed the figurine, and flung the curtain open. His card had been for Game 41378 and they were already on 41394. "Ohhhh fuck no," he mumbled. Though he couldn't remember much about his short time with Satoko other than the height of pleasurable experiences, he vaguely recalled her shouting out number after number while he was fucking her.

Oh shit, maybe he'd won the jackpot.

"Damn it!" he shouted, racing uncomfortably through the keno room, hurrying back through the red velvet curtain to find Mikako-chan still there.

She took in his disheveled appearance with a quirk to her lips. "Your friend isn't back yet, is she?"

"Huh?"

Mikako held out her hand next to her head. "Same height as me, long hair, giant bag?"

"You saw Satoko?"

Mikako was stifling a laugh now. "She said she was going to cash in your ticket for you." She leaned forward, poking him in the chest. "I guess that was a lie, hmm?"

He groaned. "You're not helping!"

It was at that point that Nino came swaggering by past the blackjack tables, looking happier than a pig in slop. It seemed like they'd both gotten laid that day on board Pretty Guardian, but Aiba was the one out a jackpot.

"Nino!" Aiba hollered, hurrying over to his partner. "Nino, someone took my keno ticket. And she left this behind. We need to go to the marketplace and see if she's still there."

All of Nino's happiness seemed to fade in a second, his eyes widening at the sight of the figurine in his hand. "Where did you get that?" he howled.

"The woman who just screwed me over," Aiba whined, stomping his feet. "Hurry, she said she was leaving soon."

Nino smacked Aiba in the face, using the distraction to snatch the ugly figure out of his hand. "Where did SHE get this?"

"She makes them," Aiba explained mournfully, rubbing his cheek. Nino was rougher than he needed to be, as usual. "She makes and sells them, why? Does it really matter? She took my keno card!"

"She?" Nino was mumbling, pacing back and forth, turning on his heel sharply as other casino patrons wandered by, staring at them. Even Mikako-chan was convulsing with giggles back by the red curtain. "She? How can it be a she?"

"Her name's Satoko. Do you know her?" Aiba inquired.

"Sato...ko?"

"Yes," Aiba said, linking his arm through his partner's. "Sa-to-ko, and she is on my shit list right at the top!" Could he even count this incident for his to-do list now? It certainly hadn't ended well...

Nino took off running, screaming his head off, shaking the hideous figurine over his head as he headed for the turbolifts. Aiba wondered if Nino had some kind of subconscious fear of figurines. What was going on with him?

They made it to the hangar bay, Aiba steering clear as Nino continued muttering angrily to himself, holding the figurine in a death grip. But before Aiba could worry any further, he saw it, plain as day.

She'd even chiseled off the name. 'Freestyle II' was now imprinted on the side of the hull but there was no mistaking it. It was the Sobu Line, docked right here in Pretty Guardian's hangar bay. Satoko was there, smiling cutely and counting out from a bag nearly overflowing with credits as some lovestruck hangar worker hauled another bag of her ugly figurines back onto the ship.

"You!" Nino screamed, pointing at Satoko. "It's you!"

Satoko looked up and shrieked, turning to run into the open hatch, shoving the poor worker out of the way. But Nino was too quick for her, and Aiba was a fast runner and oddly curious about this whole bizarre turn of events.

Before Satoko could close the hatch and lock them out, they both boarded. Aiba nearly protested about being rude to females as Nino tackled the woman and her high-heeled boots to the unforgiving floor of the Sobu Line. The ship, their ship, was full to bursting with figurines in various stages of completion.

"Hey, hey, wait a minute, Nino," Satoko protested. "Wait, I said!"

But Nino was tugging at her hair. "Is this a wig? You big liar!"

"Ow, hey!" Satoko complained.

Aiba approached, holding his hands up cautiously. "Nino, don't be so rough with her."

"She's not a her! She's a him!" Nino cried, still tugging on Satoko's long hair. "This lying asshole is not Sa-to-ko but Sa-to-shi, who apparently likes to drug people and rip them off!"

Realization dawned. The guy who'd stolen the Sobu Line...he'd drugged Nino. And then Aiba remembered the water bottle, the funny taste, waking with his keno card gone...

"But...but..." Aiba mumbled. "She has a vagina."

Nino turned on him. "He has a dick!"

"I know what a female's body looks like, Nino, and she has one!"

"There was a dick! I saw it with my own eyes!"

"You guys," Satoko tried to interrupt.

"Those boobs are real, and they're quite nice actually!" Aiba found himself saying despite his anger.

"This is a man!" Nino screeched.

"YOU GUYS!" Satoko shouted, and this time when they turned, they saw someone different. Same clothes, but the long hair had vanished, replaced with a light colored spiky mess and a bit of fuzz on his chin. No more "quite nice" breasts either. 

Aiba nearly fainted.

Nino somehow seemed proud of himself. "See. A man."

"Actually," Satoko-Satoshi noted, voice deeper and rather manly now. "Both."

They both turned, mouths gaping.

Satoko-Satoshi smiled. It was the same exact smile, the same round face. Just...on a man. "I'm a shapeshifter. From Gamma Quadrant. So, like, I'm both alright? No hard feelings?"

If he expected them to be pacified by this revelation, he really didn't know Nino well at all. "You stole my ship, you shapeshifting piece of shit!"

And then the fight was on, Aiba stepping back with a sigh as Nino pounced on the shapeshifting alien, knocking him down to the floor again, but having a much harder time now that he was tugging on shorter hair. Aiba simply looked around, frowning at all the boxes full of figurines. Did the guy really think people would buy these things?

"You drugged me! You drugged my partner!" Nino complained.

"Hey, man, come on, that hurts," Satoko-Satoshi mumbled, not all that concerned about the magnitude of what he'd done. Gamma Quadrant was a strange place.

"I'm going to airlock your skinny little ass!"

"I'm just trying to make a living!"

Finally, Aiba hauled Nino off the small man, holding him back. Aiba pursed his lips. "What if I let you keep the keno money? You keep the money, take your stuff, and leave us alone for good?"

Satoshi frowned, rubbing at his sore head. "You had twelve out of twenty numbers. It was going to be enough for the fuel to fly home..."

"He's a liar," Nino complained, struggling in Aiba's arms. "Let me kill him!"

But Aiba stood his ground, seeing a new sincerity in Satoshi's eyes. He remembered Nino's story from when the Sobu Line was initially ship-jacked. That Satoshi's original ship had been completely busted, and he'd probably been stranded on the ice moon for months. And now he was here trolling the keno room looking to scam tickets since it was pretty obvious he wasn't making any money off of his actual business venture.

"I thought you were just selling figurines," Aiba said. "Why do you want to go home?"

"I left Gamma Quadrant to be an artist. They don't let us do that on my home planet, be creative, you know? So I ran away." Satoshi looked down. "But now my parent's sick..."

"Mother? Father? Or is that a 'both' situation on your planet too?" Nino spat, and Aiba poked him hard.

Satoshi's eyes filled with tears. "I don't like being a thief, you know. I try to at least make people happy before I steal from them. I've been trying to get home for so long...I don't even know if she's still alive, but I have to get home. I'll do whatever it takes."

Nino sneered at Aiba. "You believe this crap? Come on, Masaki, he's going to drug us again if we don't turn him in right now."

But Satoshi's parent was ill, maybe dying. Aiba knew a little something about dying now. He stepped aside, hauling Nino out of the way. "We're taking our ship back," Aiba said quietly. "Please keep the money and take all your stuff with you. Buy yourself a ticket home, okay? And promise not to hurt anyone else."

Satoshi was crying openly now, which looked a little odd in the long coat and high-heeled boots, but he seemed really happy. Relieved, even.

Nino looked away, but Aiba happily accepted a hug from the cute shapeshifting thief before he departed from the Sobu Line, waving farewell. They watched him hand over some credits to pay the way for himself and his endless boxes of crap onto another ship in the hangar bay.

"He's still going to fuck people and then fuck them over," Nino gritted out.

Aiba merely grinned, seeing Satoshi's smile of joy as he disappeared up the gangplank of another ship. "I'm not so sure."

 

**.Aiba vs. the Space Plague Part 2: Electric Boogaloo.**

The Sobu Line was back! His FastPass was back! And thankfully Ninomiya Kazunari's time as an unpaid marketing lackey had come to a close. Of course Aiba had always been a big softie, letting that shapeshifting jerk go crying home to mom. A thief was a thief, no matter how good they were at tonguing your asshole.

He was even back in Kou-san's good graces, having not only regained his ship but having brought in a new, high-paying client. He'd ridden the turbolift with Keiko-san and Sakurai-san the other morning, seeing the woman's confident smile and the man's look of tightly-controlled rage and jealousy. 

The only thing still up in the air was Aiba himself. He'd been quiet and mopey lately, wandering throughout Royale, taking the turbolift up and down with sadness in his eyes. Maybe he'd even fallen for that weirdo Satoko-Satoshi in that keno room, who knew? But Nino didn't much like his partner being out of sorts, or being quiet period. What he loved about Aiba was his positivity, his pure heart. Nino considered himself a person with a pessimistic outlook on life. He considered Aiba the opposite. Much as Aiba could annoy him, it made them good partners. Black and white, yin and yang.

Something was seriously wrong with his best friend.

As a rule, Nino kept out of Aiba's business where it didn't fall under job business. Aiba could do what he liked, do who he liked, and it didn't matter to Nino so long as it didn't interfere with business. But now it was interfering. They'd ferried a guest the other day, and Aiba had been nearly teary-eyed the entire trip, sniffling at his navigator console.

If something was wrong, he usually would have said something. He was a straightforward guy. But he was definitely hiding something, and Nino was determined to find out. He waited one night until Kou-san was down planetside for another one of her strange spa sessions. Usually on those nights now Aiba snuck off to go bother Matsumoto at the top of the station.

Instead of sleeping, he turned on the light in their shared room, taking a deep breath before delving into business that wasn't his own. It only took him a few minutes to find it, stashed under Aiba's mattress where he usually kept his porno mags. It was a small bundle of papers full of Aiba handwriting, a list of some sort that had most of the items crossed off.

Nino's eyes widened as he went down the list. He soon figured out that Aiba was having some sort of contest with himself, some sexual scavenger hunt. But Aiba had always been down for anything, as he liked to cheerfully remind Nino whenever he was trying to keep down his breakfast. Why did he need a specified checklist? Why did it matter?

He turned the pages over, his breath catching at the very last page. He then went back through the others, seeing that everything else had been checked off. There was only one thing left that hadn't been accomplished.

Nino stared down and saw his own name written there with 'best friend' in parentheses after it.

Was that why Aiba was acting so weird lately? He'd gone through all these sex requirements and he only had Nino left? They'd been partners and friends for so long that it just wasn't something that had ever even come up before.

Not that Nino hadn't thought about it. Nino thought about everything at least once, considered it, weighed the pros and cons, and then moved on with his life. Sex with Aiba, sex with the best friend he ever had, sex with the only person he really trusted in this universe (dumb and annoying as he could be) had been marked 'con' and discarded years back.

But why? It wasn't like it would do much long-lasting harm. Aiba was good-looking, maybe sexy even so long as he kept his mouth shut. The opportunity had simply never arisen - they worked together, spent hours and hours together, even lived together. Hell, Aiba probably jacked off in that same room when Nino was asleep.

Apparently Aiba was upset because he didn't know how to broach the topic. Nino did have a tendency to shoot down most of his ideas, if only because he liked it when they argued. He was upset because maybe he thought Nino would turn him down. He was upset for a bunch of stupid Aiba reasons.

Well, he decided, if fucking Aiba Masaki would help get him out of his weird funk, then he'd do it. What else were best friends for?

-

Nino didn't consider himself romantic, but if Aiba had gotten through everything and only had one thing left to check off, it was best to make it memorable. He waited another night until lights out and he heard Aiba come in from checking on the Sobu Line for the night, listening to his feet against the floor as he moved to climb the ladder to the top bunk.

"Masaki," Nino said, trying to stay calm. It wasn't weird, not really, but he simply wasn't used to thinking of his friend as anything but.

"Yeah?"

"I had a bad dream," he lied. "I'm scared."

"What?" Aiba asked, incredulous. "Should I try and connect to your mom on the Net? Have her tell you everything will be alright?"

"Come here, you big idiot," he snapped back, unable to control himself. He tried softening his voice. "Please."

He could hear the hesitation somehow, could sense the wheels turning in Aiba's head. Was it going to count for his list if Nino made the first move? Did Aiba even want to do this, even if it was on his list? Finally he heard Aiba's quiet little sigh, then heard the rustling of his blanket as Aiba moved to get into the small bottom bunk with him.

Nino pressed himself back against the wall, laying on his side as Aiba slid in beside him, all long legs and arms. It was dark save for the blinking red light near their room's Net screen. Unlike most nights, Aiba had come back smelling like Aiba, not like Aiba plus someone else's dick.

Aiba turned on his side too. "I'll stay here if you really need me. Although you're thirty years old and a grown man, so it's kind of weird."

"Be quiet," Nino mumbled.

They lay together in silence for a moment, Aiba rustling a bit under the covers. When Nino couldn't bear the silence between them another second he leaned forward, finding Aiba's face with his fingers.

"What?" Aiba asked, though this time Nino heard a bit of a tremble in his voice. Good, he wasn't running away at least. 

Nino answered him with his mouth, finding Aiba's and pressing their lips together. He was warm, as though his body ran hot all the time. Any lingering weirdness about what Nino had just done after more than ten years of comfortable friendship evaporated as soon as Aiba's leg came up over Nino's thigh and he moved closer.

For all that Aiba spouted a lot of nonsense, he was a great kisser. He was aggressive and even though Nino had made the first move on the path to making Aiba's dreams come true, Aiba soon took the offered lead. He slid his tongue along Nino's lips before pushing forward and deepening their kiss. Aiba's hand came up, found the side of Nino's face, stroked teasingly along his cheek.

Aiba shifted them, turned them so Nino was under him. Nino moved his legs, allowing Aiba to fit more comfortably between them. It was almost odd how well they fit together. Why hadn't they bothered to give this a try before? But he didn't much mind, smiling now as Aiba moved away from his mouth, pressing hot little kisses against his neck, rolling his hips up against his.

Nino groaned quietly as Aiba's attentions grew rougher, his mouth sucking a bit at the skin of Nino's neck. He tugged at the bottom of Aiba's shirt, pulling the fabric up and dragging his fingers along Aiba's back. He'd always been lean, skinny even, but he was strong. He wasn't allowing Nino to tease him back, moving Nino's hands away, pushing them up and over his head, holding Nino's wrists with one of his hands, grinding his hips against him all the more urgently.

"Aiba-san, I'm feeling much better now," Nino whispered, feeling Aiba's grip on him tighten. His friend was unashamedly hard, and he could feel his erection pressing against him through the thin fabric of the trunks he usually wore to bed. But he was held in place, could only roll his own hips up, rubbing against him.

"Nino, I..."

Aiba's words were suddenly interrupted by noise from their Net screen. Who the hell was trying to get a hold of them this late? Nino sighed, feeling Aiba stiffen up above him. He tried arching his hips up. "Leave it," Nino pleaded. They'd come this far already. "Just let it go to the mailbox."

"Incoming alert, high priority, from Dr. Johnny Kitagawa," the Net screen announced.

Nino became desperate, trying to wrap his legs around Aiba's torso, to keep him in place but he was already moving away, off the bed, filling the room with light as he scrambled across the room and pressed the Net screen's power button.

Nino almost hissed at the sudden, blinding light, pulling his pillow out from under him and settling it over his face. "That doctor better not be writing to tell you that you've got a space-transmitted infection!"

Seconds later, presumably after he'd finished reading the message, Aiba let out the most ridiculous scream of joy Nino had ever heard. Even through the pillow it was loud, and he ended up flinging the thing across the room. "You are killing my boner!" Nino howled, knowing this whole thing was too good to be true.

But Aiba turned, looking slightly demonic because of the screen's glow. "Nino," he said, looking ready to burst in happiness. "I'm going to live forever."

"You know, I don't think medical science has advanced that far..."

Aiba moved back toward the bed, yanking his trunks to the ground and revealing his rather nice, hard cock, stroking it in anticipation. "Nino, I'll tell you later."

-

When Nino found out what all the fuss was about the next morning, he pushed Aiba out of his bunk and onto the floor, hearing him cry out in pain.

"You've been fucking _dying_ for two months and you didn't fucking tell me?!"

Aiba, naked as the day he was born, lay flat on his back on the floor, staring up at him. "How do you tell someone that, huh? How?"

"You just fucking tell them! What if you fucking died while flying the Sobu Line? What if you killed us both, you idiot?"

Aiba's smile gleamed. "Aww, Nino, you'd be sad if I died, wouldn't you?"

He rolled his eyes. "I can't believe I had sex with you, and now you tell me that you had a prognosis of death looming over you for two months and that you've only just discovered your elderly senile shit of a doctor had the wrong chart and that you are in fact not dying. So you just spent two months desperately fucking anything with a pulse for nothing!"

Aiba merely shrugged his shoulders. "Mistakes happen. I'm particularly happy about this mistake. It means that, you know, if you want, we can have sex whenever we want now. Because I'm not dying any time soon so I can be more selective. And since I know you fairly well, I'd select you without reservations. I think it'll make us better friends, what do you say?"

As always, Aiba Masaki's sense of logic was warped beyond anything resembling normal. But Ninomiya Kazunari couldn't think of a better partner. And to be completely honest, Aiba was as eager and enthusiastic in bed as he was about his job, and Nino appreciated simple things like that.

He moved from the bunk, returning once again to the bottle of lubricant in their bedside table drawer. "One more time, and after that how about we table it for a future discussion when I get over how angry I am with you for not telling me you were dying but not really dying?"

Aiba pondered this for a moment before nodding. "I can live with that."

A few minutes later Nino was on his back once again with his legs spread wide, biting his lip hard as Aiba's hard cock filled him again and again. It was almost better this time, having Aiba inside him, knowing that this time they weren't doing this because of some silly "before I croak" scavenger hunt. This time it was because Aiba was no longer living on borrowed time. It was because they simply felt like it, and sometimes that was enough.

Soon they'd be back in the Sobu Line, off for another boring non-adventure transporting clients to and from Royale. Kou-san would find ways to keep them from doing anything fun like bounty hunting. Bureaucratic red tape and inefficiency would keep the queues at the warp gates longer and longer even with FastPasses. Nari would overcharge for drinks at Lalapipo. Sex-obsessed shapeshifters from Gamma Quadrant would sell bug-eyed figurines. Little boys would be born on Daruma IV with dicks to be reckoned with.

Nino grabbed hold of his cock, stroking himself while Aiba sweated and moaned happily above him. It wasn't a really bad way to start the day, all things considered.


End file.
